UPI races ahead, accounts for 84% of total digital payments in FY25

The UPI digital payment system has been fast replacing cash as a preferred mode of payment, and has now taken the lead in overall digital payments

Transaction volumes logged under the fast payment mode surged to Rs 18,586 crore in 2024-25 from 1,252 crore in 2019- 20, with a marked acceleration post COVID-19. In less than a decade, India’s flagship real-time payments platform - Unified Payments Interface (UPI) - has become a leading payment system, processing more than 17 billion transactions a month and overall, accounting for 84 per cent and 9 per cent of total digital payment volumes and values, respectively, in 2024-25.

A recent study from the Reserve Bank of India showed that higher adoption of UPI is associated with lower cash demand at both national and subnational levels.