The government informed the Rajya Sabha that Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions reached a record ₹230 lakh crore in the current financial year until December 2025. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary confirmed this on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, stating that this represents a significant expansion from ₹139 lakh crore in the financial year 2022-23, demonstrating the rapid growth of digital payment adoption in India. As per PTI reports, the minister emphasized that the value of transactions through UPI was expanding at a fast pace as it hit this record high, highlighting the accelerated adoption of digital payment systems.
As reported by PTI, UPI is now operational in eight countries including Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and UAE. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confirmed in her written reply that the government, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL) are implementing various steps for international expansion. These initiatives include operationalising UPI linkages with comparable fast payment systems of partner countries and establishing travel-based corridors for cross-border payments, ensuring compliance with domestic laws of partner countries while expanding beyond India's domestic market reach.
According to Finance Minister Sitharaman's statement reported by PTI, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recognised UPI as the world's largest retail fast-payment system by transaction volume. The IMF report 'Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)' dated June 2025 further validates UPI's global leadership position. Additionally, as per the ACI Worldwide report 2024, UPI accounts for around 49 per cent of transaction volume of the global real-time retail payments, reinforcing its dominant position in the global digital payments ecosystem.
As reported by PTI, the government's international expansion strategy focuses on facilitating cross-border person-to-person (P2P) remittance flows and establishing travel-based corridors for cross-border person-to-merchant (P2M) payments. Finance Minister Sitharaman outlined that these initiatives aim to enhance UPI's utility for international transactions while maintaining compliance with domestic laws of partner countries. The comprehensive approach includes operationalisation of UPI linkages with comparable fast payment systems of partner countries to facilitate cross-border payments, expanding UPI's utility beyond India's domestic market reach.