There is a lot of scope and opportunity for expanding digital payment in the country and UPI has the potential to more than double to 1 billion users from the current base of 400 million, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said on Tuesday.
About 50 per cent of global retail payment transactions are done in India but even then in terms of the number of digital transactions per person, it has to catch up with many advanced economies.
Citing an example of Kenya, the RBI Deputy Governor said, digital transaction per person in Kenya is roughly double than what India has.
Platform Evolution
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an RBI-0promoted body which created and operates UPI, had launched a USSD-based service to enable UPI access for feature phone users, within months of the launch of the main platform for smartphone users in 2016.
” The active users of UPI are about 400 million. We are targeting 1 billion users. So…there is a lot of scope, there is a lot of distance that we need to travel,” he said while speaking at Global Inclusive Finance India Summit here.
He further said that the expansion of digital payment has changed the landscape of the country and brought in financial inclusivity.
Citing an example, the Deputy Governor said that a housewife sitting at her home can run a small enterprise with the help of UPI as her payment part is secure.
Economic Impact
Quoting a study, Rabi Sankar said 10 per cent increase in digital payment could lead to 0.3 per cent addition in GDP.
Talking about enhancing cyber security, he said, the Reserve Bank has undertaken a lot of steps in that direction including mule hunter to put a curb on digital frauds.
Digital payments have significantly increased in recent years as a result of coordinated efforts of the government with all stakeholders. The total digital payment transactions value increased from Rs 2,071 crore in FY 2017-18 to Rs 22,831 crore in FY 2024-25 at CAGR of 41 per cent.
UPI Dominance
Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has emerged as the most popular and preferred payment mode pioneering Person to Person (P2P) as well as Person to Merchant (P2M) transactions.
About 81 per cent by volume of the total retail payment transactions in the country are processed on UPI rails.
UPI powers linking of multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank/third party application provider (TPAP).
The Reserve Bank has been facilitating the linkage of UPI with Fast Payment Systems (FPSs) of other countries on a bilateral basis, enabling both inward and outward remittance payments. Currently, such linkage is live with Singapore since February 2023 and implementation of similar projects with the UAE and Nepal are in progress.
The acceptance of India’s UPI apps via QR Code has been operationalised in Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UAE and Qatar which enables Indian tourists, students, and business travellers in other countries to make payments to merchants using their Indian UPI apps.
Published on January 13, 2026
