The report highlights the growing dominance of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which accounted for 85.5% of all payment volumes during the second half of 2025. UPI transactions surged to 12,191 crore in H2 2025, a massive jump from 1,530 crore in H1 2021, underlining how deeply the platform has become embedded in everyday transactions.
Over the past decade, India’s digital payments volume has grown 33-fold, reflecting rapid adoption of real-time payment systems and a broader shift away from cash-based transactions.
While UPI dominates transaction volumes, the Reserve Bank noted that RTGS continues to remain the backbone for large-value transfers, accounting for just 0.1% of transaction volume but contributing 68.6% of the total transaction value.
The report also highlighted changing consumer payment behaviour. Credit card spending rose sharply to ₹23.2 lakh crore in calendar year 2025 from ₹8.9 lakh crore in 2021, while private banks strengthened their hold over the segment, increasing their share of outstanding credit cards to 71.1%.
At the same time, debit card usage continued to decline sharply. Debit card transaction volumes fell 67% between CY2021 and CY2025 as consumers increasingly shifted towards UPI-based payments.
The Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) also saw strong traction, with transaction values surging over 16-fold in four years to ₹14.8 lakh crore.
FASTag adoption continued to rise steadily, with issuances more than doubling to 11.87 crore and toll plazas under the network increasing to 1,896.
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The RBI report further noted that UPI QR-code based payments are now live in eight countries, including France, the UAE and Singapore, reflecting India’s growing push to internationalise its digital payments infrastructure.
Meanwhile, cheque usage continued to decline, although the average ticket size increased 35%, indicating that cheques are increasingly being used for higher-value transactions.
