As UPI completes a decade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted its scale and reach, while official data shows a sharp rise in transaction volumes and value since 2016.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday marked 10 years of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), describing the platform as a “major turning point” in India's digital payments journey and urging users to share how it has changed their everyday lives. The milestone comes as UPI has grown from a limited banking initiative into a central part of India's digital payments ecosystem.
In a post on X, Modi said the scale and reach achieved by UPI were something every Indian could be proud of. He also invited people to share their experiences of using the platform and its impact on their lives.
From Pilot to Mass Payments
UPI was launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under the regulatory oversight of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The system initially began with 21 banks and has since expanded across India's banking and digital commerce ecosystem.
According to government data, annual UPI transaction volume rose from around 2 crore transactions in 2016-17 to more than 24,162 crore in 2025-26. Transaction value increased from about ₹0.07 lakh crore to nearly ₹314 lakh crore over the same period.
The figures underline how rapidly digital payments have moved into routine transactions, ranging from person-to-person transfers to payments at physical and online merchants.
Record Scale in 2025-26
The Union Finance Ministry said UPI processed 24,161.69 crore transactions during 2025-26, with a total value of about ₹314 lakh crore. There were 703 active banks on the platform as of March 2026.
March 2026 recorded UPI's highest monthly transaction volume at 2,264 crore transactions, while the monthly transaction value reached ₹29.53 lakh crore, according to the government's decade review.
The platform accounted for about 85 per cent of India's digital payment transactions by volume in 2025-26, according to the Finance Ministry's data.
UPI's Global Expansion
UPI's growth has also extended beyond India's borders. The payment infrastructure has increasingly been adopted for cross-border payments and by countries seeking to enable UPI-based transactions for Indian travellers and other users.
The government has described UPI as the world's largest real-time payment system by transaction volume, citing its scale and interoperability. Official data also puts India's share of global real-time payment transaction volume at around 49 per cent in 2025.
The expansion has made UPI an important component of India's broader Digital Public Infrastructure and an increasingly visible element of the country's digital diplomacy.
What Changed for Users
For consumers, UPI brought multiple banking functions into a single interoperable payment framework, allowing users to transfer money directly between bank accounts and make merchant payments using participating applications.
Its rapid adoption has also reduced the dependence on cash for many small-value transactions. QR-code payments have become common across shops, service providers and other businesses, allowing even small merchants to accept digital payments without requiring conventional card-payment infrastructure.
A Decade of Digital Payments
The 10-year milestone comes as India continues to expand its digital public infrastructure across banking, government services and commerce. UPI's trajectory has been closely associated with that wider shift towards real-time, interoperable digital services.
The next phase will involve expanding the system's international footprint, improving digital payment capabilities and ensuring that its growth remains accessible across different sections of the population.
For now, the decade milestone offers a measure of how dramatically India's payment habits have changed since UPI's public rollout in 2016.
