New Delhi — India’s Unified Payments Interface now handles nearly 49 percent of the world’s real-time payment transactions, making it the largest real-time payment system globally, the government said.
The milestone comes as the Digital India program marks 11 years since its launch on July 1, 2015. The initiative has helped expand the country’s digital public infrastructure, accelerate payments, improve the delivery of government services and create economic opportunities in urban and rural areas.
India has shifted from a largely cash-based economy to one in which digital payments are the preferred transaction method for millions of consumers and merchants, the government said.
UPI, launched in 2016-17, enables instant person-to-person and person-to-merchant payments across banks through interoperable digital platforms.
The government attributed UPI’s rapid growth to interoperable banking infrastructure, Aadhaar-based digital identification, affordable internet access, expanding 5G and fiber-optic connectivity, rising smartphone use and the availability of user-friendly payment applications.
Those developments have extended secure digital payments from major cities to remote rural communities while reducing dependence on cash, it said.
UPI is also expanding internationally. Greece recently became the 10th country to enable UPI services, allowing Indian travelers and businesses to make digital payments overseas, according to the government.
The government also highlighted Digital India’s role in strengthening public welfare programs through online platforms.
The Poshan Tracker, developed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development under Saksham Anganwadi and Mission Poshan 2.0, has digitized nutrition service delivery across India.
As of May 2026, the platform had more than 1.33 million registered Anganwadi workers serving 89.3 million beneficiaries, including pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children and adolescent girls. Nearly 99.89 percent of beneficiaries had been verified through Aadhaar, the government said.
The platform uses Aadhaar authentication, geotagging, geofencing and facial recognition for ration distribution. It also maintains a live database tracking nutrition indicators for more than 77 million children, allowing officials to monitor programs in real time and make data-driven policy decisions. (Source: IANS)
