1. Accessing the Digital World More
There are plans for India to bring on board 200-300 million more customers into its Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the real-time digital payment mechanism. One of the applications is to help the people become less cash-reliant through giving them digital access without directly banking into those accounts like - the children and household staff - with his account.
2. Transforming Daily Payments
Over 450 million Indians have converted to new payment methods introduced through UPI, which charges no transaction fees for payments made from tea stalls to supermarkets by a scan on their smart device's camera.
1. Global Leader in Volume
India comprises nearly about 46 per cent of total digital transactions worldwide. A significant increase in retail digital payments is visible in the last 12 years; they have gone 90 times up, according to a PwC report. UPI thus plays a critical role in this change.
2. Shifting Towards International Promotion
With the support of the Indian government, NPCI, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India is now plumping to globalize UPI.
1. Helping the Indian Diaspora
It is international goals for UPI that they would speed and cheapen remittance — money that Indians send from abroad. Thus, Indians abroad sent back the all-time capacity of USD 129 billion in 2024, the highest for any country.
2. Sending Money Abroad Too
Besides inward remittances, UPI could make it really easy for Indians to send money abroad, such as for their education fees or even to carry on an important part of their livelihood expenses in other countries.
1. Early Wins in Asia
India has already entered an agreement with the countries: Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to broaden the use of UPI in places where large communities of Indians exist.
2. Challenges in Western Nations
With countries like the US, UK, and Australia, progress is slow largely due to the fact that real-time payment systems are still maturing.
1. Making More Accessible
NPCI has plans to add more customer-friendly features such as multilingual support, chat-based payment alternatives, and visual recognition technologies for things like payments for parking.
2. Providing More Credit Services
UPI has already taken steps into the small-ticket loan space. NPCI envisions that there is great potential for being able to use repayment behavior online and digital activity behavior to improve credit decisioning across loan models.
1. Debate on the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)
UPI once had a small MDR fee of 0.3%, but it was removed in 2020 with the aim of fostering users' acceptability. Instead, the government provided incentive programs for merchants, but they shrank from ₹36 billion in 2024 to just ₹15 billion in 2025.
2. Possible Return of Fees
There is a current buzz regarding introducing small transaction fees on large merchants to make the platform financially viable.
3. User Resistance
73% of UPI users would no longer use UPI if transaction fees were introduced, according to a LocalCircles survey.
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