India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is fast becoming a global fintech force. Since its accelerated adoption during the COVID era, UPI has witnessed a dramatic rise in usage.
India’s home-grown fintech innovation, UPI, is rapidly emerging as the leading platform for digital retail payments. When it comes to transaction value, UPI has already surged far ahead of its competitors.
Last month, UPI transaction value exceeded Rs 25 lakh crore—12 times the total value of all card transactions. With its rapid growth in daily transaction volume, UPI is on track to surpass global giant Visa, positioning itself as the world’s largest retail interbank payment settlement network. Notably, Visa does not disclose its daily transaction volume.
UPI is rapidly catching up to global card networks in transaction volumes. On June 1 and 2, it logged 644 million and 650 million transactions—just ahead of Visa’s FY24 global daily average of 639 million.
Daily UPI transactions have grown from 630 million in early May to 650 million in early June, marking a steady 5–7% monthly increase and 40% year-on-year growth. This surge is fueled by rising internet access and wider adoption of digital payments across India.
In comparison, Visa’s transaction volumes are growing at about 10% annually. If current trends continue, UPI is poised to surpass Visa in average daily transactions within the next two to three months.
This upcoming milestone is especially significant given the fundamental difference in how UPI and card networks operate.
Unlike Visa and Mastercard, which use deferred settlement systems, UPI processes payments in real time. Today, UPI handles nearly 85 per cent of all digital payments in India.
Unsurprisingly, an RBI report highlights that India now contributes nearly 50 per cent of the world’s real-time payment transactions—a testament to UPI’s dominance and efficiency.
