UPI transaction volume could reach 25-30 billion by early 2026. Global financial services firm Worldline, which released the India Digital Payments Report 1H 2024, said the number of UPI transactions increased from 8.03 billion in January 2023 to 13.9 billion in June 2024.
The growth is primarily driven by P2M (person to merchants) transactions where UPI users are making payments to merchants. In absolute numbers, the total P2M transactions volume grew from 29.15 billion in H1 2023 to 48.94 billion in H1 2024, a growth of 68 per cent year on year, while the value of transactions grew from ₹19.39 trillion to ₹31.45 trillion, a 62 per cent increase.
“We are looking somewhere between 25-30 billion in terms of number of transactions in early 2026. Right now we are seeing healthy growth as far as UPI transactions are concerned, and both value and volume are driven by P2M transactions,” said Sunil Rongala, senior vice-president — strategy, innovation and analytics, Worldline India.
As of June 2024, PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm accounted for 94.83 per cent of all UPI transaction volume, while in terms of transaction value, they together represented 92.21 per cent.
The average ticket size of all UPI transactions in H1 2023 was ₹1,603, which has declined by 8 per cent to ₹1,478 in H1 2024. In the case of P2M transactions, the average ticket size fell from ₹667 to ₹643.
“This shows that UPI is a preferred method for microtransactions, demonstrating long-term sustainability. The payment infrastructure continues to grow as well. The number of POS (point of sale) terminals deployed on the field crossed the 8.96 million mark,” said Ramesh Narasimhan, chief executive officer, Worldline India.
On Wednesday, the RBI announced an increase in the per-transaction limit in UPI123Pay from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000; and also increased the UPI Lite wallet limit from ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 and per-transaction limit from ₹500 to ₹1,000. This is expected to further boost the transaction volume.
“In UPI lite we are already seeing an uptick in the number of transactions given how frictionless it is. With yesterday’s increase we are going to see much more of that,” said Rongola.
Piramal Pay
Piramal Payment Services, a subsidiary of Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, on Thursday said it has received formal approval from the RBI to set up and operate its Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) service, known as ‘Piramal Pay’.
