UPI accounts for 85.5% digital transaction volume in H2 2025:RBI

India’s digital payments landscape continued its rapid expansion in the second half of 2025, with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) accounting for 85.5 per cent of total digital transaction volume, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s latest half-yearly Payment Systems Report.The report underscored UPI’s growing dominance in India’s retail payments ecosystem, driven by rising smartphone penetration, expanding digital infrastructure and increasing consumer confidence in cashless transactions.
According to the RBI, National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) each accounted for 3.6 per cent of transaction volume during the period, while Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) contributed only 0.1 per cent owing to its role as a high-value, low-volume payment system.
However, in terms of transaction value, RTGS remained the leading platform with a 68.6 per cent share of total transaction value, reflecting its importance for large-value settlements. NEFT accounted for 14.9 per cent of the transaction value, followed by UPI at 9.5 per cent, while PPIs contributed 0.1 per cent.
RBI noted that the figures highlight the contrasting roles played by the payment systems, with RTGS facilitating large corporate and institutional transactions, while UPI continues to power mass retail payments across the country.The RBI stated that NEFT has retained its relevance in India’s evolving payments ecosystem due to its capability to process both small and large transactions with settlement completed within an hour.
India’s digital payments ecosystem has witnessed significant growth over the past decade. The report stated that transaction volumes increased 33 times between 2016 and 2025, while transaction values nearly tripled during the same period.Over the last five years, digital payment volumes expanded more than fourfold and values nearly doubled, translating into a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43 per cent in transaction volume and 17 per cent in transaction value.
The RBI attributed the strong growth momentum to higher smartphone adoption, expansion of public digital infrastructure such as UPI, and growing public trust in secure and seamless digital payment systems. According to the report, total payment transaction volumes in India rose from 6,437 crore in 2021 to 26,819 crore in 2025. In value terms, transactions increased from Rs 1,741 lakh crore to Rs 3,215 lakh crore during the same period, registering a CAGR of 42.9 per cent in volume and 16.6 per cent in value.

(Business Correspondent)