Fiscal Nepal
First Business News Portal in English from Nepal
KATHMANDU: In a landmark moment for the global digital economy, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has officially overtaken Visa to become the world’s largest real-time payment system, according to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability.”
The IMF highlights that UPI now processes over 640 million daily transactions, surpassing Visa’s average of 639 million. The report credits UPI with powering 85% of India’s digital payments and accounting for nearly 60% of all global real-time digital transactions.
₹24 Lakh Crore Processed in June 2025 Alone
In June 2025, UPI recorded 18.39 billion transactions, worth more than ₹24 lakh crore (approx. $288 billion USD). This marks a 32% year-on-year growth compared to 13.88 billion transactions in June 2024, demonstrating the platform’s explosive adoption across both urban and rural India.
Built in Just Nine Years, UPI Sets Global Benchmark
Launched in 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI has reached a global leadership position in just nine years. The IMF lauded its interoperability, cost-efficiency, and open architecture, which have driven its rapid adoption, especially among small merchants and individuals with limited banking access.
The system’s ability to enable instant, bank-to-bank, 24/7 transactions has revolutionized how money is transferred in India—reducing reliance on cash and promoting financial inclusion at scale.
UPI’s International Expansion: Now Live in 7 Countries
What started as a domestic innovation is now going global. UPI is live in seven countries, including Singapore, UAE, France, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius. Several more nations, including Indonesia and the UK, are in discussions to integrate UPI into their payment systems.
This international expansion places UPI on track to become a global standard for interoperable retail payments, challenging global players like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal in cross-border use cases.
The IMF report states that UPI’s scalability and openness should be seen as a model for other emerging economies. It further notes that UPI has brought down transaction costs, supported government-to-person (G2P) welfare payments, and stimulated digital entrepreneurship in the Indian economy.
“The scale achieved by India’s UPI is extraordinary. It underscores how well-designed, inclusive, and low-cost payment infrastructure can reshape the financial system,” the IMF noted.
With continued innovation—including credit-on-UPI, NFC-based offline payments, and AI-enabled fraud detection—India’s UPI is poised to set the next frontier for real-time, borderless financial ecosystems.
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