UPI Ranked World’s Top Real-Time Payments System By IMF; Holds 49% Global Transactions

New Delhi, Dec 9 (KNN) India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been reaffirmed as the world’s largest retail fast-payment system by transaction volume, according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) June 2025 report, ‘Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)’. 

Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary shared the findings in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday.

UPI also holds the highest global market share among real-time payment systems, with a 49 per cent share of worldwide real-time transactions, as reported by ACI Worldwide’s ‘Prime Time for Real-Time 2024’.

India Leads Global Real-Time Payments

A comparative assessment shared by the Ministry of Finance shows that India recorded 129.3 billion real-time payment transactions, far exceeding Brazil (37.4 billion), Thailand (20.4 billion), China (17.2 billion), and South Korea (9.1 billion). 

Together, these countries contribute to a global total of 266.2 billion transactions across real-time payment platforms.

Support for MSMEs and Small Merchants

To support small-scale merchants in adopting digital payment systems such as UPI, the Government, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have implemented several initiatives. 

These include an incentive scheme to promote low-value BHIM-UPI transactions and the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), which provides financial support to deploy point-of-sale devices and QR codes in tier-3 to tier-6 centres.

As of 31 October 2025, around 5.45 crore digital touchpoints had been deployed through PIDF in smaller towns and rural locations. 

In FY 2024–25, a total of 56.86 crore QR codes were deployed across approximately 6.5 crore merchants, significantly expanding the digital payments footprint.

(KNN Bureau)