India's UPI Surpasses Visa To Become World's Top Real-Time Payment System: IMF
India's UPI leads fast payments, handling 640 million daily transactions, surpassing Visa. UPI powers 85% of India's digital payments and 60% globally, now live in seven countries.
India's real-time payment technology UPI (Unified Payment Interface) has emerged as the global leader surpassing Visa, according to a recent note by the International Monetary Fund titled Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability. The IMF report states that UPI has powered 85 per cent of India's digital payments and nearly 60 per cent globally.
UPI is handling 640+ million transactions daily, head of Visa, the report stated, adding that Rs 24 lakh crore processed via 18.39 billion UPI transactions in June 2025. The transaction percentage rose 32 per cent YOY compared to the same month last year at 13.88 billion.
India's Unified Payments Interface is also now the world's number one real-time payment system, the IMF report said. It has surpassed Visa to take the lead in processing daily transactions. UPI handles more than 640 million transactions every day, compared to Visa's 639 million. This scale is extraordinary, especially when you consider that UPI achieved it in just nine years, it added.
UPI is a real-time payment system that enables instant money transfers between bank accounts through a mobile application. It is built on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) infrastructure. UPI brings multiple bank accounts into a single app and supports various features such as fund transfers, merchant payments and peer-to-peer payment requests, making digital transactions quick and convenient.
UPI's Global Acceptance
The IMF report highlighted how UPI technology hasn't remained geographically secluded to India, as several nations have also adopted in recent times.
The success story does not stop at home, the IMF report added, 'UPI is making its presence felt across borders. It is already live in seven countries, including the UAE, Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France and Mauritius."
Its entry into France is a milestone because it is UPI's first step into Europe. This allows Indians travelling or living there to pay seamlessly without the usual hassles of foreign transactions, it added.
India is also pushing for UPI to become a standard within the BRICS group, which now has six new member nations. If this happens, the IMF report said, it will improve remittances, boost financial inclusion and raise India's profile as a global tech leader in digital payments.
How Did UPI Revolutionise The Digital Payment?
The IMF report explained that UPI connected banks and fintech apps through a common platform managed by NPCI.
This openness has two big benefits, it added, 'First, users have the freedom to choose their favourite app, based on trust or ease of use. Second, it creates healthy competition among providers to offer better features and security."
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July 21, 2025, 12:04 IST
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