Digital Payments in India have hit a new record, and the numbers are massive. UPI has proven once again why it’s the king of digital transactions in the country. With over 106 billion transactions in just six months, India is showing the world how to do digital payments right.
UPI Maintains Its Crown In Digital Payments
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) remained the dominant force in digital payments, with transactions rising 35% year on year to reach 106.36 billion in the first half of 2025. That’s more than 106 billion times Indians scanned a QR code or entered a UPI ID to make payments.
The total transaction value through UPI reached Rs 143.34 lakh crore, showing how deeply digital payments have integrated into daily life, according to Worldline’s India Digital Payments Report (1H 2025). Every day, crores of rupees move through UPI from one account to another.
People Are Using UPI For Smaller Purchases
The average UPI transaction size dropped from Rs 1478 in early 2025 to Rs 1348 in early 2025. This decline suggests that users are increasingly relying on UPI for small, everyday purchases at tea stalls, grocery stores, and online platforms.
What does this tell us? Indians are comfortable using UPI even for buying a cup of tea or a packet of biscuits. The payment method has moved beyond just big bills and online shopping.
Small Shops Are Driving The Growth
Person-merchant (P2M) payments increased 37 percent to 67.01 billion, driven by what Worldline calls the Kirana Effect, where smaller, more micro-scale enterprises are leading the adoption of digital. One of the main reasons why these numbers are so high is that your local kirana store also takes UPI payments.
Go to a street in any city or town, and you will see QR codes hanging in small stores. The universal acceptance of UPI has made it the first choice for everyone.
India Is The Largest Merchant Network In The World
The QR-based payment network grew at a very high rate in India, with the number of acceptance points reaching 678 million in June 2025, an increase of 111 percent since January 2024. Just think about it, 678 million points where you can scan and pay. More points of acceptance than many countries have people.
Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals also increased by 29 percent to 11.2 million, and Bharat QR was 6.72 million. Such transformations have turned India into the largest merchant network in the world, where small business involvement and government inclusion programs have been important.
It is now possible to accept digital payments not only in metro cities, but also in small villages.
Credit Cards Are Transforming Their Purpose
It is also reported that credit cards are turning out to be luxury instruments of expenditure. Active credit cards rose by 23 percent between January 2024 and June 2025, with monthly expenditures of over 2.2 trillion.
Although the average transaction size dropped by 6 percent, credit cards are currently being used to make more daily purchases. Credit cards are not being saved by people to use on big purchases. They are swiping them for groceries, gasoline, and to eat out.
Debit Cards Are Seeing A Plummet In Popularity
Conversely, PoS terminals saw the use of debit cards decrease by almost eight percent, with lower-value transactions shifting to UPI. You can pay with your phone. Why should you rummage around and find your wallet and card? And that is what is happening in India.
Debit cards no longer dominate, but the convenience of UPI is difficult to resist. No card to carry, no PIN to memorize for small amounts, and immediate confirmation.
The Winner Is Mobile Payments
Mobile payments were the most preferred in daily transactions and increased 30 percent annually to 98.9 billion transactions valued at Rs 209.7 trillion. Your mobile phone has become your bank, your wallet, your payment terminal.
Mobile payments using UPI are fast and easy to do, whether you and your friends are splitting the bill, paying the auto-driver, or scrolling through the internet shopping.
ChatGPT Is Now Able To Process UPI Payments
And through a pilot initiative coordinated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Razorpay, and OpenAI, users can now use the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to make payments directly through ChatGPT using AI-powered instructions. This project is one big stride towards agentic AI commerce, where artificial intelligence is capable of transacting safely and effectively without human intervention.
The idea of agentic AI is AI models that can execute sophisticated tasks with little human effort. ChatGPT can be integrated with UPI credentials, allowing it to become a transactional assistant by authorizing transactions. According to Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur, this technology makes AI assistants no longer a mere tool of discovery, but a full-fledged shopping assistant with the ability to make purchases independently.
This is still being tested, but just imagine you ask ChatGPT to pay your electricity bill or even send money to a friend, and it does. The future of payments is becoming interesting.
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