Unified Payments Interface

For the American news agency, see United Press International.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
Product typeInstant inter-bank payment system
OwnerNational Payments Corporation of India
Produced byNational Payments Corporation of India
CountryIndia
Introduced11 April 2016; 8 years ago (2016-04-11)

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an Indian instant payment system as well as protocol developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2016. The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions.[1][2] It is used on mobile devices to instantly transfer funds between two bank accounts. The mobile number of the device is required to be registered with the bank. The UPI ID of the recipient can be used to transfer money. It runs as an open source application programming interface (API) on top of the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS),[3][4][5][6] and is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Indian Banks started making their UPI-enabled apps available on Google Play on 25 August 2016.

With UPI, India maintains its position as the global leader in instant payments, accounting for 46% of all global instant payment transactions in 2022.[7][8] As of November 2022, the platform had over 300 million monthly active users in India.[9][10] According to data from the NPCI, 12.20 billion UPI transactions worth ₹18.41 lakh crore (equivalent to $222.17 billion) were processed in January 2024, representing a 41.72% increase in transaction value compared to January 2023.[11] In 2023, the total annual value of UPI transactions in India reached ₹182 lakh crore (equivalent to $2.2 trillion), reflecting a 59% increase in transaction volume and 45% increase in transaction value compared to 2022.[12] UPI transactions in July 2024 averaged ₹1,430 per transfer, with the system processing 5,390 payments every second.[13] The success of UPI made it a soft power tool for India.[14] It became one of the most successful deep-tech financial innovations India has produced.[15][16]

  1. ^ "UPI payments now available in UAE as NPCI's global arm partners Mashreq Bank". Mint. 20 August 2021. Archived from the original on 20 August 2021. Retrieved 20 August 2021.
  2. ^ Admin (15 December 2020). "What is UPI- Unified Payment Interface: Simplified – QuesAns". quesans.co.in. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  3. ^ Srivastava, Aditi; Nair, Gouri S (16 July 2022). "Why America Urgently Needs India's UPI Boost". News18. Archived from the original on 17 July 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  4. ^ Varahasimhan, S. (4 July 2022). "UPI: the dawn of digital fintech nirvana". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  5. ^ "Do I need to register a beneficiary before transferring funds through UPI, what is maximum I can transfer? – What is UPI?". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  6. ^ VK, Anirudh (3 July 2019). "Multilingual Support Will Help Increase Adoption Of Mobile Payments In India, Says Gaurav Raina Of MPFI". Analytics India Magazine. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  7. ^ "World's Major Economies Playing Catch-Up as Widespread Adoption Drives Global Real-Time Payments Growth – ACI Worldwide Report". www.businesswire.com. 29 March 2023. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  8. ^ "India sees 46 per cent of world's total real-time digital transactions: President Droupadi Murmu". MSN.
  9. ^ "IIT Madras Working on Voice-based Contact-less Payment Services Which Recognises Local Indian Languages". News18. 17 May 2021. Archived from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  10. ^ Khan, Aarzu (21 July 2021). "NPCI's Voice-Based Payment Solution Could Be a Game Changer". Dazeinfo. Archived from the original on 21 July 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  11. ^ "UPI transactions touches Rs 18.41 lakh crore in January, shows NPCI data". Moneycontrol. 2 February 2024. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  12. ^ Kayastha, Anshika (2 February 2024). "UPI transactions touch new record of ₹18.4-lakh crore in Jan". BusinessLine. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  13. ^ "UPI Ecosystem Statistics". NPCI. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  14. ^ Dieterich, Carole (3 March 2024). "India's UPI mobile payment system has become a soft power tool". Le Monde.fr. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Patnaik, Somya (18 July 2019). "UPI will push India over the digital payments finish line". American Banker. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.