Mumbai: The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform touched new highs in 2025, posting record transactions in December both in terms of value and volume, according to the latest data published by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
The platform also posted its highest annual transactions in 2025.
UPI processed 228 billion transactions worth a cumulative ₹300 trillion in 2025, 33% more than in 2024 in terms of the total number of transactions and 21% higher in terms of value.
In December 2025, the platform processed a record 21.6 billion transactions worth ₹30 trillion, up 29% year-on-year in terms of volume and 20% in terms of value. During the month, it recorded an average daily transaction count of 698 million and an average daily transaction amount of ₹90,217 crore.
The sustained increase in monthly transactions reflects the structural change in consumer behaviour, with UPI becoming the default mode of payment across metros as well as smaller towns, experts said.
“UPI has reaffirmed its role as the backbone of everyday commerce, enabling seamless payments from metro cities to the last mile in Bharat (India's small towns and villages),” said Anand Kumar Bajaj, founder and managing director of payments platform PayNearby.
NPCI’s recent initiative to strengthen UPI Autopay through a dedicated mandate-management portal is a timely step toward improving transparency, user control, and ease of recurring payments across subscriptions, utilities, and digital services, he added.
Last week, NPCI launched a central portal that allows users to view and manage their autopay or standing instructions on UPI in one place. The platform is aimed at helping customers track and identify “dark patterns”, especially used by e-commerce platforms which nudge users into accepting recurring mandates. All members of UPI were asked to comply with the norms by 31 December, 2025.
Next phase of growth
Going into 2026, growth in transactions is expected to be led by expansion of UPI beyond urban and smartphone-native users to tier-3 towns and beyond. Experts said adoption will increase, aided by recent innovations and initiatives such as biometric identity, vernacular conversational interfaces, and trust-first onboarding.
Deeper adoption, wider QR (quick response) acceptance, rising consumer confidence, and higher average ticket sizes should also push utilisation of UPI from largely small value transactions to “more meaningful, higher value transactions”, they added.
However, with a bigger base and the pace of growth slowing down, both in terms of the volume and value of transactions, market participants believe the next phase of growth will come not just from more people using the platform but from shifting customer behaviours, personalised payment patterns and a rise in cross-border payments.
“2026 will be the year payments move from being fast to being intelligent,” said Akash Sinha, chief executive officer and co-founder, Cashfree Payments. He said growth will be driven by “new payment behaviours” such as conversational and agentic payments, biometric authentication, and intelligent cross-border flows that understand intent, instead of reacting to transactions. “AI will move from the background to the core, simplifying checkout journeys into intent-led confirmations while managing complexity invisibly,” he said.
