UPI can grow 10 times from current base, says NPCI chief Dilip Asbe

India’s real-time payments system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), can grow ten times from its current levels, said Dilip Asbe, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

 

The apex payments body recorded 16.73 billion transactions in December 2024. UPI registered over 172 billion transactions in 2024 alone.

 

At present, UPI is the most favoured mode of financial transactions, with over 400 million users transacting on the payments ecosystem, making payments to peers (peer-to-peer) or merchants (peer-to-merchant).

 

“We need significant support from the RBI, the government, and the ecosystem to on-board another 200–300 million people into the digital payments fold. Digital payments are now integral to life—I don’t think we’re going back to cash,” said Asbe during a session at the 19th India Digital Summit (IDS) today.

   

The two-day IDS 2025 is being organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. It is supported by Digital India, Skill India, and Make in India.

 

At present, over 70 players offer UPI services in the country. Of these, more than 40 are third-party UPI applications (TPAPs).

 

He added that credit cards on the RuPay network held about 16 to 17 per cent of the country’s market share.

 

“The RuPay card network is growing rapidly and has the potential to become one of the largest in India. Currently, RuPay holds about 16–17 per cent of the credit card market share, and with increasing momentum, we aim to make it an equal player within the next couple of years,” he said.

 

RuPay is India’s own payment network system, launched in 2012 by the government-backed NPCI. The RuPay credit card was introduced in June 2017.

 

Nearly five years after this launch, the apex payments body rolled out the programme to link RuPay credit cards on UPI in September 2022. Users can link their RuPay credit cards to UPI apps to make merchant payments.