UPI handles nearly 80 crore transactions daily, Nirmala Sitharaman says

India's Unified Payments Interface is now handling close to 80 crore transactions every single day, cementing its position as the world's largest real-time retail payment network, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Speaking on the reach of the country's public digital architecture, Sitharaman noted that monthly volumes on the platform have crossed 2,400 crore transactions. Since 2016–17, UPI transaction volume has surged nearly 13,000-fold, transforming everyday retail commerce and drawing millions of citizens into formal banking channels.

Scale of India's payment network

The sheer volume of payments moving across the network reflects how deeply digital systems have integrated into daily household and retail life across the country.

Beyond basic money transfers, the fintech ecosystem constructed around UPI has expanded access to formal credit, insurance, and personal investment options, enabling millions of first-time users to enter the institutional financial fold.

Bolstering domestic data infrastructure

Sitharaman described data centres as the "vault of the digital age", pointing to policy steps designed to anchor core digital capabilities within Indian borders.

The central government granted infrastructure status to data centres in 2022 to spur capital deployment. In the Union Budget 2026–27, the government introduced a tax holiday for international firms offering global cloud services through data facilities established in India.

To safeguard sovereign payment networks, the Reserve Bank of India is establishing a dedicated campus to operate primary settlement rails, including the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) systems. The facility will also house specialized research arms and training institutes focusing on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data centre engineering.

Legal framework for sustainable operations

As the payment infrastructure scales to record levels, Parliament is reviewing legislative measures intended to keep digital rails commercially viable and technologically secure for the long term.

The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 includes an amendment to Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. The provision gives the government legal headroom to notify charges on specified electronic payment methods if required.

Under discussions around the measure, policymakers have weighed a potential Merchant Discount Rate of between 0.25% and 0.5% on UPI payments exceeding ₹2,000. Official assessments point out that micro-payments—such as neighbourhood groceries, milk, and daily household spending—would remain entirely unaffected.

Transactions above ₹2,000 account for only about 5% of total UPI transaction volume, but they represent roughly 65% of the overall value flowing through the system. Providing a framework to support institutional investments in network stability, fraud control, and server capacity ensures that India's digital payments rail remains resilient as daily usage continues to set global benchmarks.