Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has officially surpassed Visa to become the world’s leading real-time payment system, processing over 650 million transactions daily. Amitabh Kant, the former CEO of Niti Aayog, hailed the milestone on X, posting, “UPI surpasses Visa to become the world’s leading real-time payment system, processing over 650 million transactions daily.”He said that reaching this milestone in just 9 years shows the remarkable scale and pace of its growth.“From India to the world, UPI is leading the digital payment revolution!” In a seperate post, the ex-G20 Sherpa further added, “Phenomenal ! This has been one of the most notable achievement of PM Narendra Modi government. This has transformed lives of citizens.”UPI hit 650.26 million daily transactions, beating Visa’s 639 million.Despite Visa’s presence in over 200 countries, UPI’s reach across just 7 nations, and its higher daily transaction count highlights its potential as a global digital payments force. According to a recent IMF Fintech Note titled ‘Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability’, India now leads the world in faster payments. The IMF noteed that UPI has seen explosive growth since its 2016 launch, while traditional instruments like debit and credit cards have begun to see a decline in use. Developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI is an instant inter-bank payment system designed for mobile platforms. At the time of the report, it processed over 18 billion transactions each month and dominates India’s electronic retail payments space.
