Digital payments boom: UPI achieves record 22.64 bn transactions in March 2026

New Delhi: Ever since the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was introduced, it has changed how people send and receive money in India. In March 2026, transaction through the UPI touched a record high of 22.64 billion in volume terms.

“UPI achieves 22.64 Bn transaction count in March’26! Thank you, India, for embracing digital payments and driving this revolution forward. Let’s continue the journey of transforming the way we transact!,” Department of Financial Services said in a post on X.

In volume terms, 22.64 billion transactions were carried during via UPI in March 2026, while it stood at 18.3 billion in the same month a year ago. It reflects a growth of 24 per cent. In February 2026, the UPI transaction in volume terms was 20.39 billion.

India’s UPI Revolution

UPI is a secured payment system which comes with strong security and also follows the RBI’s two-factor authentication rule. The user’s mobile number is linked to the user’s bank and the second is the UPI PIN, thus making transactions safe from unauthorised access.

Today, UPI accounts for 85 per cent of all digital transactions in India.

India has successfully launched UPI is over eight countries, including the UAE, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France, Mauritius, Qatar, Singapore, and Bhutan.

A note by the International Monetary Fund titled ‘Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability’, stated that India has emerged as the global leader in fast payments. UPI was launched in 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India.

NPCI acts under the guidance of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks’ Association. It is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India (IBA).

UPI has more than 49% share in the global real-time payment system transaction volume.

The total retail digital payment transactions including its growth rate during the last four financial years are given below:

Data Source: PIB