16% of card spends happen on RuPay, half of it on credit via UPI: NPCI

RuPay is India's indigenous payment network run on NPCI's infrastructure

About 16 per cent of all credit card spends happen on the RuPay card network and nearly half of these are credit on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a senior official from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Friday.

 

"Almost 16 per cent of total credit card spends are happening on RuPay now and 50 per cent of that is happening on UPI. Over 30 banks are issuing RuPay cards," NPCI chief Dilip Asbe said. He was speaking at the sidelines of Mumbai Tech Week 2025.

 

RuPay is India’s indigenous payment network run on the NPCI rails.

 

According to latest data published by the Ministry of Finance, over 750 million transactions amounting to ₹63,825.8 crore concerned with RuPay credit on UPI were processed till October during the financial year 2024-2025 (FY25).

 

This number was 362.8 million transactions valued at ₹33,439.2 crore in FY24.

 

Meanwhile, the NPCI is set to establish a global headquarters spanning five lakh square feet  in the business district of Mumbai at the Bandra-Kurla Complex. 

 

This would be a facility having a 5,000-member capacity acting as its research and development (R&D) centre as it expands its global footprint.

 

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) allocated land to NPCI to establish the necessary infrastructure.

 

“We are building about 5,000-people-capacity R&D and an experience centre. About 70 countries have visited the NPCI office in the last four to five years,” Asbe explained that AI is one of the emerging practice areas for the body.

 

NPCI runs India’s real-time payments system Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the RuPay card network.

 

The infrastructure push at NPCI comes at a point when the apex payments body is expanding its suite of products with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI), and international expansion via its wholly-owned subsidiary NPCI International Payments (NIPL).

 

NIPL is responsible for deploying NPCI’s products globally.

 

It is looking to go live with UPI in geographies relevant to Indian tourists, such as Qatar, Thailand, and the broader Southeast Asian region.

 

At present, UPI payments are accepted in seven countries, including Bhutan, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and France. Twenty apps, including third-party application providers such as BHIM, PhonePe, Paytm, and Google Pay, support such international transactions.