Nearly 55.49 Crore Users Onboarded on UPI as in June 2026

📌 Summary:

• UPI is a payment system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), authorised under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007

• NPCI reports 55.49 crore users onboarded on the UPI platform as in June 2026

• FY 2025-26 transactions: 24,161.69 crore in volume and ₹314.23 lakh crore in value

• Five-year trajectory — FY 2021-22: 4,595.61 crore volume / ₹84.16 lakh crore value; FY 2022-23: 8,371.44 / ₹139.15; FY 2023-24: 13,112.95 / ₹199.95; FY 2024-25: 18,586.60 / ₹260.56; FY 2025-26: 24,161.69 / ₹314.23 — a more than five-fold rise in volume in five years

• NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), a wholly owned NPCI subsidiary incorporated in April 2020, takes UPI and RuPay abroad — enabling cross-border payments for Indian tourists and the diaspora and helping partner countries build UPI-like real-time payment systems or RuPay-like domestic card schemes

• Countries linked with UPI (with year of going live): Bhutan P2M (July 2021), Singapore P2M (Aug 2021), UAE P2M (April 2022), Singapore P2P via PayNow (Feb 2023), France P2M (Feb 2024), Mauritius P2M (Feb 2024), Sri Lanka P2M (Feb 2024), Nepal P2M (March 2024), Qatar P2M (Sept 2025), Greece P2P (May 2026), Nepal P2P (June 2026), Cambodia P2M (June 2026)

• Security measures by Government, RBI and NPCI: risk-based transaction limits to curb fraudulent transactions; safeguards against unauthorised mobile number changes and misuse of SMS-based authentication; enhanced security requirements for UPI applications

• NPCI has issued the Comprehensive UPI Information Security Framework (CUISF) 2025 and the Mobile Application Security Framework, mandating advanced security controls

• Information given by MoS Finance Shri Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply in Lok Sabha

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 (Indian Economy — digital economy, financial inclusion, payment infrastructure) and GS2 (IR — digital public infrastructure as an instrument of soft power and economic diplomacy through UPI internationalisation).

📝 Prelims Facts:

• UPI is operated by NPCI, authorised under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007

• 55.49 crore users onboarded as in June 2026

• FY 2025-26: 24,161.69 crore transactions worth ₹314.23 lakh crore

• NIPL (NPCI International Payments Ltd) incorporated April 2020 — wholly owned NPCI subsidiary

• Bhutan was the first country live with UPI (P2M, July 2021); Greece (P2P) and Cambodia (P2M) are among the most recent additions

• CUISF 2025 = Comprehensive UPI Information Security Framework

🔑 Key Term: P2P vs P2M — Person-to-Person transfers move money directly between two individuals' accounts, while Person-to-Merchant transactions are consumer payments to a business; UPI's international linkages are enabled separately for each mode, country by country.