UPI at 10: 504 million users and 65 million merchants reshape Indian retail payments
UPI has grown from 1.78 crore transactions in FY17 to more than 24,162 crore in FY26, accounting for 84% of India’s digital retail payments. Its next phase hinges on credit, offline acceptance, conversational AI and cross-border expansion.
What happened
UPI’s tenth-year assessment highlights its dominance in Indian retail payments, reaching 504 million users and 65 million merchants. The outlook flags
Key facts
- UPI annual volume: 1.78 crore transactions in FY17 to over 24,162 crore in FY26
- UPI annual value: Rs 7,000 crore in FY17 to around Rs 314 lakh crore in FY26
- July 2026: 2,366 crore UPI transactions
- Over 20 billion monthly transactions
- 504 million users
- 65 million merchants
- 84% of India's digital retail payments
- 703 banks live on UPI, versus 44 in FY17
- UPI live in more than eight countries
- Digital public infrastructure cooperation agreements with 23 nations
- Cross-border UPI volumes grew 20x in one year
- Retail SIP transactions through UPI grew almost 177% last year
Why this matters
Retail, payments and fintech players should target partnerships or acquisitions that add UPI credit, offline acceptance, conversational interfaces and international corridor capabilities.
What to watch
- RBI or NPCI changes to UPI credit rules, transaction limits, interchange economics, merchant fees or data-sharing standards.
- Growth in RuPay credit-card-on-UPI volumes and average transaction values relative to bank-account UPI payments.
- Adoption of UPI Lite, UPI 123PAY, NFC/offline UPI and conversational payment flows in low-connectivity and non-English markets.
- Evidence that UPI credit increases merchant conversion without a corresponding rise in consumer complaints, fraud or repayment stress.
- New UPI cross-border corridors, foreign merchant acceptance partnerships and tourist payment volume.
- Consolidation or monetization pivots among leading UPI apps, payment aggregators and merchant POS providers.
- Retailer uptake of UPI-linked loyalty, digital receipts, reconciliation and working-capital products.
- Integrate UPI into unified commerce systems so store, app, WhatsApp and social orders share payment status, refunds and customer identity.
- Prioritize QR acceptance resilience: offline payment support, multi-app interoperability, rapid dispute handling and backup connectivity at high-volume stores.
- Use consented transaction data for merchant reconciliation, repeat-customer identification and targeted rewards, while avoiding dependence on any single payment app.
- Test credit-on-UPI for high-consideration categories with clear affordability disclosures, hard spending limits and delinquency monitoring.
- Prepare cross-border UPI acceptance for tourist-heavy locations, beginning with FX transparency, refund workflows and staff training.
- Reassess payments economics: replace MDR-led assumptions with value from checkout conversion, lower cash costs, merchant software and embedded financial services.