New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund recognised the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as the world’s largest real-time fast-payment system, reaffirming India’s leadership in UPI Global Transactions. In its June 2025 report on retail digital payments, the IMF identified UPI as the top retail fast-payment system by transaction volume.
India’s Leadership in UPI Global Transactions Strengthened by Large Market Share
According to the ACI Worldwide report Prime Time for Real-Time 2024, UPI accounts for 49 percent of global real-time payment volumes. India recorded 129.3 billion transactions. Brazil followed with 37.4 billion, while Thailand reported 20.4 billion. The report also shows that UPI continues to stay ahead of major payment platforms in China and South Korea.
To support small-scale merchants, the Government, the Reserve Bank of India and the National Payments Corporation of India launched several initiatives. These include incentives to promote low-value BHIM-UPI transactions and the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund. The Fund finances deployment of point-of-sale terminals and QR codes in tier-3 to tier-6 centres. By 31 October 2025, authorities deployed about 5.45 crore digital touch points through PIDF. Moreover, by FY 2024–25, they deployed 56.86 crore QR codes across nearly 6.5 crore merchants.
Efforts to deepen adoption of RuPay and UPI continue across public services, transport and e-commerce sectors. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary shared the information in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
