UPI transactions hit record high of ₹29.9 lakh crore in May
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📌 Summary:
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Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions hit a record ₹29.90 lakh crore in value and 23.2 billion in volume in May 2026 — driven by summer travel and IPL spending
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April 2026 value was ₹29.03 lakh crore versus ₹25.14 lakh crore in April 2025 — a 19% year-on-year growth
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Data released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
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UPI now accounts for roughly 80% of retail digital payments by volume in India and over 50% of global real-time payment transactions
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Growth reflects deepening digital adoption beyond Tier-1 cities, expansion to feature phones (UPI-123Pay), credit on UPI (RuPay), and cross-border linkages (Singapore, UAE, France, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bhutan)
🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS Paper 3 — Digital economy; Indian Economy planning/growth; financial inclusion; payments infrastructure as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
📝 Prelims Facts:
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UPI launched by NPCI in April 2016
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NPCI is an umbrella organisation under RBI and IBA (Indian Banks' Association); set up under Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007
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UPI-123Pay is the feature-phone variant launched in 2022
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UPI is interoperable with PayNow (Singapore), UAE Aani, France, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bhutan, Nepal
🔑 Key Term: Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — Shared digital systems (identity, payments, data exchange) — like Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker — that provide an open layer for both public and private services. India's DPI stack is being positioned as a global model under "India Stack".
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