Transactions through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) hit a new high of Rs 12.11 lakh crore in October and crossed the Rs 10 lakh crore milestone in May, six months later.

In terms of transaction volume, UPI recorded a record 730 crore billion transactions in October. UPI transactions hit Rs 678 crore in September, surpassing the Rs 11 lakh crore mark.

As a remittance system, UPI can realize the real-time flow of funds. It is both a funds transfer system and a merchant payment system. The UPI pilot was launched on April 11, 2016, by former RBI Governor Dr Raghuram G Rajan.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, digital payment systems have grown, especially with small businesses entering the digital payments ecosystem. According to an RBI report, UPI payments increased by more than 1,200% during the half-year to September.

In another report, RBI’s Payments Vision 2025, UPI projected an average annual growth rate of 50%.

In fiscal 2022, around 71 billion digital payments were recorded across India. This is a significant increase compared to the previous three years. Since 2015, UPI has recorded strong growth in both volume and value.

As a result, major international players such as Google Pay or Amazon Pay have entered the market. The most used app in 2021 is the domestic PhonePe. According to Statista, PhonePe has a 46% share of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) usage in India by fiscal 2022, followed by Google Pay at 34%.