New Delhi, April 30 -- The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), launched on April 11, 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under the regulatory oversight of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has emerged as the backbone of India's digital payments ecosystem and a critical driver of financial inclusion.

Over a decade of operations, UPI has demonstrated extraordinary scale and momentum. Annual transaction volume expanded from just 2 crore transactions in FY 2016-17 to over 24,162 crore transactions in FY 2025-26, representing an almost 12,000-fold surge in transaction volume. Parallelly, transaction value rose sharply from Rs 0.07 lakh crore in FY 2016-17 to approximately Rs 314 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, translating into a ...