UPI Leads World With 49% Global Real-Time Payments Share, Says IMF & ACI

Further, the ACI Worldwide “Prime Time for Real-Time” 2024 report revealed that UPI accounts for a remarkable 49% of all global real-time payment transactions, far surpassing every other country’s system.

India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has once again reaffirmed its position as the world’s leading real-time digital payments platform, according to two major international reports. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its June 2025 report titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)”, recognized UPI as the largest retail fast-payment system (FPS) globally in terms of transaction volume.

Further, the ACI Worldwide “Prime Time for Real-Time” 2024 report revealed that UPI accounts for a remarkable 49% of all global real-time payment transactions, far surpassing every other country’s system.

This information was shared by Minister of State for Finance, Shri Pankaj Chaudhary, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha today. The findings underline India’s rapid advancement in creating an inclusive, interoperable, and highly scalable digital payment ecosystem.

UPI vs Global Real-Time Payment Platforms: India at the Top

A comparative analysis of transaction volumes shows the overwhelming lead held by UPI:

Country	Transaction Volume (in billions)	Global Share
India (UPI)	129.3	49%
Brazil	37.4	14%
Thailand	20.4	8%
China	17.2	6%
South Korea	9.1	3%
Others	52.8	20%
Total	266.2	100%

These figures reflect the scale, accessibility and reliability of India’s digital infrastructure. UPI’s interoperability, ease-of-use, and zero merchant discount rate (MDR) policy have also boosted adoption across all segments of the economy.

Supporting Small Merchants: Government and RBI Measures

To ensure widespread adoption of digital payments, especially among small merchants and micro-businesses, multiple initiatives have been launched:

• Incentive Scheme for Low-Value BHIM-UPI Transactions Encourages habitual digital payment use among consumers and merchants.

• Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Provides grant support to banks and fintechs for deploying digital acceptance devices such as QR codes and POS terminals in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres.

  • As of October 31, 2025, around 5.45 crore digital touch points have been deployed.

  • In FY 2024–25 alone, 56.86 crore QR codes were deployed to 6.5 crore merchants, significantly enhancing acceptance capability across India.

• Expansion of RuPay and UPI Across Sectors Digital payments are being integrated into public services, transportation networks, e-commerce platforms, and government ecosystems nationwide.

India’s Digital Payments Revolution: A Global Model

UPI’s success has made India a benchmark for real-time payment innovation. With features like seamless interoperability, instant settlement, open architecture, and multilingual access, UPI continues to set global standards. Multiple countries—including Sri Lanka, France, UAE, Singapore and others—have initiated collaborations with NPCI International to adopt or integrate UPI-like systems.

A Future-Ready Payments Landscape

The Government, RBI, and NPCI continue working together to deepen digital payment penetration and strengthen cybersecurity, fraud management and consumer awareness. With ongoing innovations such as UPI Lite, UPI Tap & Pay, credit-on-UPI and international UPI acceptance, India is positioning itself at the forefront of the global digital economy.