Industry Odisha Bureau, Jul 09: The real-time digital payment system, known as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and launched in April 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) reportedly recorded an all-time high of 22.72 billion transactions in June this year totalling Rs 28.92 lakh crore.
As per key statistics being reported, “While 228.3 billion transactions in 2025 reflects a growth of nearly 74% compared to 131,129.50 million in the previous year (2024), the 228.5 billion transactions in 2025 marks a 33% year-on-year (YoY) increase.”
Similarly, the key statistics of UPI’s transaction volume from 2017 to 2023 being reported is: “In 2017, the number of UPI transactions has been recorded as 17.9 million, in 2018 – 915.2 million, in 2019 – 5,353.40 million, in 2020 – 12,518.60 million, in 2021 – 22,330.70 million, in 2022 – 45,956.10 million, in 2023 – 83,714.40 million.”
So far the UPI transactions volume daily is concerned, it has been reported to be “743 million per day as of February 2026, an increase of 2.75% from December 2025, when the average volume was 764 million.”
The UPI usage is reportedly not confined to India as it has reportedly gone beyond India.
Thus, reports have stated that, “UPI is available in eight countries outside India, while Bhutan is claimed to be the first foreign country to adopt UPI for QR-based payments on 13 July 2021. Thus, the Indian travellers as well as the locals there are now allowed to pay with UPI.”
Apart from Bhutan, Singapore also reportedly enjoys the facility as “UPI was officially launched on February 21, 2023 following which India’s UPI has been linked with Singapore’s PayNow system and enables instant cross-border payments.”
In addition to Bhutan and Singapore, reports have stated that, “UPI got rolled out in United Arab Emirates (UAE) on July 3, 2024, in Qatar on September 24, 2025, in Nepal on March 8, 2024 in partnership with Nepal’s Fonepay, in Sri Lanka on February 12, 2024 in partnership with local payment network LankaPay, in Mauritius both UPI and RuPay were jointly launched on February 12, 2024, while France is the first European country to accept UPI payments since it was formally launched on February 2, 2024 at the iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris paving the path for the Indian tourists to make payments at popular tourist destinations.”
Reports further claimed that, “The latest country to join the list of countries accepting UPI payments is Cambodia, while NPCI has partnered with PayNet to enable QR code payments across Malaysia, and NPCI has agreements to enable UPI payments across Israel soon.”
Notably, “The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organization established in December 2008 by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to operate retail payments and settlement systems in India under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. NPCI is a government-owned entity registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013, with an authorized capital of Rs 3 billion and paid-up capital of Rs 1 billion. Its board includes nominees from the RBI and core promoter banks, and it has expanded its shareholding to include multiple public and private sector banks, foreign banks, and regional rural banks.”
Besides the UPI, “NPCI facilitates a wide range of digital payment services in India, like the centralized bill payment system ‘Bharat Bill Pay’, domestic card payment network ‘RuPay Card’, electronic toll collection system ‘FASTag’, national automated clearing house for bulk payments called ‘NACH’ and ‘Aadhaar-based payments’ (linking payments to Aadhaar for authentication)”.
