India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) continued its rapid rise in 2025, reaching new milestones in both transaction volume and value, according to the latest figures released by the National Payments Corporation of India. The platform also recorded its highest ever annual transaction count during the year.
UPI processed a total of 228 billion transactions in 2025, amounting to a cumulative value of Rs 300 trillion. This marked a 33 per cent increase in volume and a 21 per cent rise in value compared with 2024.
December 2025 alone saw record activity, with 21.6 billion transactions worth Rs 30 trillion. This reflected a year on year growth of 29 per cent in volume and 20 per cent in value. On average, the platform handled 698 million transactions a day, with a daily value of Rs 90,217 crore.
Experts said this steady growth shows a clear shift in how people pay, with UPI becoming the preferred mode of transaction across both large cities and smaller towns.
“UPI has reaffirmed its role as the backbone of everyday commerce, enabling seamless payments from metro cities to the last mile in Bharat,” said Anand Kumar Bajaj, founder and managing director of a payments platform.
He also welcomed NPCI’s recent move to strengthen UPI Autopay through a central mandate management portal. The new system allows users to view and manage all their recurring payment instructions in one place. It aims to improve transparency, user control, and help customers spot so called dark patterns often used by online platforms. All UPI members were directed to follow these rules by December 31, 2025.
Looking ahead to 2026, experts believe the next wave of growth will come from deeper adoption in tier three towns and rural areas. New features such as biometric identity, local language interfaces, and trust focused onboarding are expected to support this shift.
They also said UPI will gradually move from being used mainly for small payments to handling higher value transactions. With a larger user base, future growth will depend more on changing habits, personalised payment experiences, and a rise in cross border usage.
“2026 will be the year payments move from being fast to being intelligent,” said Akash Sinha, chief executive officer and co founder of a payments company. He added that artificial intelligence will play a bigger role in making transactions simpler and more intent driven.
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