Amitabh Kant lauds UPI for surpassing world leader Visa

New Delhi, July 13 Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Sunday lauded UPI for becoming the world's leading real-time payment system, processing a staggering 650 million transactions daily to dislodge Visa from the top rank.

Calling it ‘phenomenal’, Kant said, “This has been one of the most notable achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. This has transformed the lives of citizens.”

"UPI surpasses Visa to become the world's leading real-time payment system, processing over 650 million transactions daily. Achieving this in just 9 years highlights its unmatched scale and momentum," he wrote on X. "From India to the world, UPI is leading the digital payment revolution."

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has strengthened its dominance in India’s digital payments system, with its share in the total transaction volume rising to 83.7 per cent in 2024-25 from 79.7 per cent in the previous financial year.

The RBI’s annual report shows that UPI facilitated 185.8 billion transactions during 2024-25, which represents a 41 per cent year-on-year increase. In value terms, UPI transactions rose to Rs 261 lakh crore from Rs 200 lakh crore in FY24.

“The success of UPI placed India in a leadership position with a share of 48.5 per cent in global real-time payments by volume,” the RBI said.

Total digital payments in the country, including transactions through payment systems, card networks, and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), grew 35 per cent to 221.9 billion in FY25, from 164.4 billion transactions in FY24. In value terms, total digital payments surged 17.97 per cent to Rs 2,862 lakh crore.

Credit card transactions increased to 4.7 billion in FY25 from 3.5 billion in FY24, while debit card usage saw a sharp 29.5 per cent decline, falling to 1.6 billion transactions. The share of digital transactions in the total volume of non-cash retail payments stood at 99.9 per cent in FY25 compared to 99.8 per cent in FY24.

RBI also said it remains committed to extending UPI to 20 countries by 2028-29.

Acceptance of Indian UPI apps via QR codes has already been enabled in Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the UAE, allowing Indian tourists, students, and business travellers to make merchant payments using their domestic UPI apps.

The RBI also said that the total incidence of fraud cases declined, but fraud amounts tripled to Rs 36,014 crore, mainly due to surging advances related to fraud. In contrast, card and internet fraud volume diminished significantly from 29,802 in FY24 to 13,516 in FY25.

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