Overview

• India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) experienced its third major outage in April, disrupting transactions nationwide and impacting millions of users.
• UPI has been a cornerstone of India's digital economy, facilitating cashless payments for over 450 million users, from street vendors to affluent consumers.
• The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) plans to onboard 200-300 million additional users and expand UPI's reach internationally, despite ongoing reliability challenges.
• UPI accounts for nearly 46% of global digital transactions, with India leading in digital payments and recording $129 billion in remittances in 2024.
• Calls for infrastructure upgrades and enhanced regulatory oversight are intensifying as technical issues risk undermining the system's widespread adoption and trust.