India accounts for 49 pc of global real-time digital payments as UPI turns 10

New Delhi, April 11: As India’s Unified Payments Interface marks its 10th anniversary on Saturday, the government informed that the country now accounts for 49 per cent of global real‑time payment transactions.
The instant payments system processed 21.70 billion transactions in January 2026 alone, with Rs 28.33 lakh crore in value. UPI accounted for 81 per cent of all retail digital transactions in India.
The International Monetary Fund has called UPI the world’s largest real‑time payment system by volume, and it was built in under 10 years, an official statement said.
UPI has grown 12,000‑fold in volume and over 4,000 times in value since launch. The government said UPI’s real transformation is beyond the volume of transactions, but its reach spans domestic informal markets from autorickshaw drivers to village mandis and street vendors.
“A domestic worker can send money across states in seconds using a basic smartphone. In this system, the divide between urban and rural, formal and informal, steadily disappears—marking a decisive shift towards financial inclusion,” the statement said.
India’s digital payments ecosystem has also emerged as a reference model globally. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have acknowledged its scale, efficiency, and inclusiveness. (IANS)