IMF Confirms UPI as World’s Largest Retail Fast-Payment System

The IMF report (June 2025) titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability” recognized Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as the world’s largest retail fast-payment system (FPS) by transaction volume.

UPI Dominates Global Real-Time Payments

• As per ACI Worldwide’s “Prime Time for Real-Time 2024” report, UPI accounts for around 49% of global real-time payment transactions.
• India continues to lead the world in adoption, scale and interoperability of digital payments.

Government & RBI Push for Small Merchant Adoption

To help small-scale merchants adopt digital payments (including UPI), multiple initiatives have been launched by the:

• Government of India
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

Key Initiatives Supporting Digital Payments

Major measures include:

• Incentive scheme to promote low-value BHIM-UPI transactions.
• Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) to provide grant support to banks and fintech companies.
  • This supports deployment of PoS terminals, UPI QR codes and other infrastructure in tier-3 to tier-6 centres.

Expansion of Digital Payment Infrastructure

• As of 31 October 2025, approximately 5.45 crore digital touchpoints have been deployed in tier-3 to tier-6 locations under PIDF.
• By the end of FY 2024–25, around:
  • 56.86 crore QR codes were deployed
  • Covering approximately 6.5 crore merchants across the country.

Source: PIB