UPI recognized as world’s largest real-time payment system by IMF; accounts for 49% of global transactions

New Delhi: Ever since the launch of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the payment interface has been the hot favourite of crores of people for making financial transactions. In yet another achievement, the ACI Worldwide report on ‘Prime Time for Real-Time’ 2024, UPI has around 49% share in the global real-time payment system transaction volume.

Also, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on ‘Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)’ dated June 2025 had recognized UPI as the world’s largest retail fast-payment system (FPS) by transaction volume.

The Indian government, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have encouraged small scale merchants in adopting digital payment systems including UPI.

“These inter alia, include incentive scheme for promotion of low value BHIM-UPI transactions, and the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) which provides grant support to the banks and fintechs for deployment of digital payment infrastructure (such as POS Terminals and QR codes) in tier-3 to 6 centers,” the Ministry of Finance release read.

As of October 31, 2025, approximately 5.45 crore digital touch points have been deployed through PIDF in tier-3 to 6 centers. Further, as of FY 2024-25, a total of 56.86 crore QR were deployed to approximately 6.5 crore merchants, it added.

The Government, RBI and NPCI have introduced and advocated for deepening digital transactions through RuPay and UPI across businesses including public services, transport and e-commerce platforms on a nationwide basis.

UPI’s status against other leading international real-time payment platforms

(With PIB inputs)