U
nified Payments Interface (UPI) worked remarkably well in FY2025-26 as per the details shared by the Ministry of Finance in Lok Sabha. As per NPCI, the number of transactions made through the platform came out to be 24,161.69 crore in FY26 with a total value of Rs 314.23 lakh crore.
It was an increase from last fiscal year as transactions in FY2024-25 were 18,586.60 crore worth Rs 260.56 lakh crore. Hence, there was nearly 30 percent increase in the transaction volumes and nearly 21 percent increase in transaction value. This indicated that the platform continued to remain dominant even after completing ten years in business.
According to the answer by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, as of June 2026, 55.49 crore users had been onboarded in UPI. This indicates how widely adopted the payments platform has become since its introduction in 2016, as initially, it was conceived as an experimental effort toward real-time bank transfers using interoperability in the system.
The growth path taken by UPI in the past ten years has been quite phenomenal. At the beginning of its journey in FY2016-17, the platform only had 44 banks participating in it as a part of the network. However, by FY2025-26, it had already reached the 700 banks threshold – thus ensuring almost universal adoption across the country.
The transaction figures paint a similarly impressive picture. Starting with the 4,595.61 crore transactions made in FY22, the number of UPI transactions has grown over five times, reaching 24,000 crore in FY26. In the same way, the transaction value of the UPI payments system has soared from a small portion of a lakh crore to reach Rs 314 lakh crore.
It is estimated by industry experts that India has captured nearly half of all the real-time.
Private sector apps on the back of UPI system architecture continue to define the dynamics. PhonePe has managed to retain its supremacy, securing a considerable transaction volume and value share in the market.
Google Pay is second in terms of market presence, while Paytm makes third place, but its market share is much smaller than in previous years.
A few third-party applications dominate the UPI app market space. Such market dynamics have occasionally raised concerns regarding risks of market concentration, motivating the government to consider some regulatory actions to promote alternative apps within the framework of the UPI system.
It takes great responsibility with large-scale projects, and the government has taken an active stance on tackling the security issues that come with such a project.
In particular, the ministry has talked about the launch of the Comprehensive UPI Information Security Framework 2025 as a regulation aimed at securing the system from frauds, phishing attacks, and any other security threats.
Since the adoption of the payment system will continue to spread even to small cities and villages of India, the problem of cybersecurity will become increasingly important.
The new framework aims to create security standards for all banks, payment service providers, and application developers.
In addition to its success domestically, UPI has emerged as a product that is considered exportable as a digital public good. NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NPCI, has been working with various foreign parties to spread UPI and the RuPay card network beyond Indian borders.
Such an effort is made for two reasons.
First, it ensures that Indians traveling abroad can use the same UPI system that they use domestically to make cross-border payments. Second, it enables the partner countries to develop their own real-time payment system or domestic card networks based on the Indian experience of setting up such systems.
As per the ministry, there are now links between the UPI system and that of other countries to make cross-border Person-to-Person (P2P) and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions possible. The most recent examples of such international partnerships have been Greece and Nepal for P2P transactions and Cambodia.
These figures imply much more than the mere use of statistical analysis tools in India. Ordinary people of India no longer engage in transactions using cash as the medium.
Merchants, street vendors, and kirana stores are accepting UPI QR code-based digital payments in a big way. Financial inclusion, tax compliance, and formalization of economy are all benefiting from this change in behavior.
In addition, the consistent increase in daily volume of transactions to the point of reaching hundreds of crores daily is evidence enough of UPI's ability to enable small transactions besides making large ones possible through digital payments. From buying a cup of tea to settling utility bills, everything can now be done via digital payments.
