India UPI Digital Payments: Volume and Value

UPI is a real-time payment system run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It lets people move money instantly between bank accounts from a phone. A growing network of banks and fintech apps has made it India's preferred way to make real-time payments [1].

Transaction volume grew from 91.52 crore in FY2017-18 to 13,116.47 crore in FY2023-24 [3]. By our calculation, that is roughly 143 times as many transactions in six years.

In the first five months of FY2024-25 (April to August), transaction value had already reached ₹101 lakh crore [1], about half of the previous full year.

Payments to merchants now outnumber transfers between people. Person-to-merchant (P2M) payments made up 62.40% of UPI transactions in August 2024 [1].

Most of these payments are small: 85% were for ₹500 or less [1]. People use UPI heavily for everyday purchases, not just large transfers.

Value and growth figures come from Government of India and Reserve Bank of India publications, which cite NPCI data [1][2]. The yearly volume series comes from an academic paper that compiles NPCI statistics [3]. Check it against NPCI's own published statistics.

One crore is 10 million. One lakh crore is one trillion rupees.