IMF Report 2025: India Tops Global Fast Payment Rankings as UPI Crosses 18 Billion Monthly Transactions.
International
India has become the world leader in fast payments, with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) now processing over 18 billion transactions per month. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) fintech note released in July 2025, this surge reflects India’s rapid shift toward a cashless economy and sets a global benchmark in digital transaction speed.
- UPI, launched in April 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), runs atop the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) platform regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Its interoperable design allows users to transact across different banks and apps seamlessly, making it the world’s largest real-time payment system by volume.
Main Point :- (i) In June 2025, UPI recorded an 18 billion+ transactions (a 32% year-on-year increase) and a 20% rise in transaction value. Daily volumes touched around 613 million transactions. Meanwhile, proxies for cash usage—such as ATM withdrawals, debit, and credit card payments—continued a steady decline.
(ii) The IMF note titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability” emphasised how UPI’s open architecture fosters user choice, competition, and innovation. It also served as a model for other countries, highlighting the importance of interoperability and urging regulators to monitor potential market concentration risks.
(iii) The report underlined UPI’s role in boosting financial inclusion, with over 500 million active users and its potential for future expansion into cross-border payments, credit flows, and extending reach to feature phone users via UPI Lite. It further recommended continued regulatory vigilance to maintain UPI’s open ecosystem and healthy competition.
About International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Managing Director (MD) : Kristalina Georgieva
Headquarters : Washington DC, USA
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