Global leader: UPI surpasses 3,700 transactions per second, up 58% on year

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as the world's most popular alternative payment method, with 3729.1 transactions per second in 2023, shows data analysed by global payments hub Paysecure. 

This is a 58% increase over the 2,348 transactions every second in 2022. UPI is a real-time payment system that allows users to make a bank transfer instantly. It is regulated by India’s central bank and has been in use since 2016. 

India leads the world in digital transactions, with over 40% of payments being made digitally, and UPI being used for a majority of them.

UPI processed transactions to the tune of Rs 80.8 lakh crore ($964 billion) in April-July 2024, a sharp 37% year-on-year (y-o-y) surge compared to the same timeframe the previous year. Transactions on UPI totalled Rs 20.64 lakh crore in July this year or about $247 billion. The value of transactions processed has remained above Rs 20 lakh crore for three consecutive months now.

According to the data shared by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Sunday, in August, UPI volume posted a 41 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth and 31 per cent Y-o-Y growth in value. In June, the numbers were at 13.89 billion in volume and Rs 20.07 trillion in value.

Skrill has emerged as the second-most popular alternative payment method in the world. Skrill processes 1,553.8 transactions per second and processed 49 billion transactions in 2023. 

Pix is the 3rd-most popular alternative payment method worldwide, processing 1,331.8 transactions per second. 

Alternative Payment Methods that recorded more than one-thousand transactions per second in 2023

• Unified Payments Interface (India): 3,729.1
• Skrill (100+ countries): 1,553.8
• Pix (Brazil): 1,331.8
• Alipay (China): 1,157.4

What is Pix?

Pix is an online instant payment platform introduced by the Central Bank of Brazil in late 2020. It was created to make payments and money transfers more convenient and universal for the people of Brazil. As of March 2024, the Pix payment app is used by 153 million Brazilians (75% of the population) and 15 million companies. Data from the Central Bank shows that Pix accounted for 39% of all electronic payments in the country in 2023. The Pix payment platform has the potential to one day overtake the debit card industry in Brazil, which was responsible for 41% of all electronic payments made in 2023.