Ziraat Times News Desk
New Delhi, Dec 8: India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been recognised as the world’s largest retail fast-payment system (FPS) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), reaffirming the country’s dominance in the global digital payments landscape. The IMF’s June 2025 report titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)” highlights UPI’s unmatched transaction volume among global payment platforms.
A separate 2024 analysis by ACI Worldwide further underscores UPI’s scale, noting that India accounts for 49% of all real-time payment transactions worldwide, with 129.3 billion transactions processed—far surpassing Brazil (14%), Thailand (8%), China (6%), and South Korea (3%).
Government Measures Driving Rapid Expansion
The rapid growth of digital payments, particularly among small-scale merchants, has been propelled by targeted interventions from the Government of India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Key initiatives include:
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Incentive schemes for low-value BHIM-UPI transactions
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Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), offering grants for POS terminals and QR deployment in tier-3 to tier-6 cities
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RuPay-UPI integration across public services, transport, and e-commerce
As of October 31, 2025, PIDF has enabled the installation of 5.45 crore digital touch points across smaller towns and rural centres. By the end of FY 2024–25, a total of 56.86 crore QR codes had been deployed across 6.5 crore merchants, significantly widening the digital payments footprint.
UPI vs Global Real-Time Payment Platforms
Country |
Transaction Volume (in billions) |
Global Share |
|---|---|---|
India |
129.3 |
49% |
Brazil |
37.4 |
14% |
Thailand |
20.4 |
8% |
China |
17.2 |
6% |
South Korea |
9.1 |
3% |
Others |
52.8 |
20% |
Total |
266.2 |
100% |
