Srinagar, Aug 24 (KINS): The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), launched on August 25, 2016, by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under the regulatory oversight of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), is completing 10 years of transforming India’s digital payments landscape.
Over the past decade, UPI has emerged as the backbone of India’s digital payments ecosystem and a major driver of financial inclusion.
Annual transaction volume has surged from 1.78 crore transactions in FY 2016-17 to over 24,162 crore transactions in FY 2025-26, marking an almost 13,000-fold increase.
The value of transactions has also risen sharply, from ₹0.07 lakh crore in FY 2016-17 to around ₹314 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, representing an increase of more than 4,000 times.
UPI has become one of the most successful pillars of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), providing an interoperable, real-time payment platform for seamless peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant transactions.
The platform has played a significant role in bridging the digital divide, promoting financial inclusion and expanding access to digital financial services across the country.
UPI’s scale, reliability and interoperability have also received international recognition, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledging it as the world’s largest real-time payment system by transaction volume.
The number of banks live on UPI has increased from 44 in FY 2016-17 to 703 in FY 2025-26, further strengthening its geographic reach and contribution to financial inclusion.
UPI is currently operational in 11 countries and is increasingly emerging as a global platform for cross-border digital payments, highlighting India’s leadership in developing scalable, inclusive and innovative digital public infrastructure.(KINS)
UPI completes 10 years of digital payments revolution, emerges as world’s largest real-time payment system
