New Delhi, Nov. 9 -- The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) completes 10 years in August. Looking back, one would characterize this instant payment system as a resounding success. UPI recorded 24,162 crore transactions in 2025-26, valued at Rs.314 trillion.

More importantly, UPI now facilitates more than 80% of India's digital payments. All of these payments pass through a single switch, a central software built by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that helps in moving each payment from the payer's bank to the receiver's bank.

Additionally, looking at the application layer above the switch, we find that most transactions that arrive at this switch stem from two applications only, indicating concentration at both the layers...