plate 047 · 2026 data

India's UPI now handles 86% as many payments as Visa

Transactions in the latest fiscal year, billions: one country's public rail versus Visa's whole world.

India's rise
  1. 1. India now has more working-age people than China
  2. 2. India's UPI now handles 86% as many payments as Visa
  3. 3. Indian students now outnumber Chinese students in the US
  4. 4. India's GitHub developers outnumber China's, Brazil's and Japan's combined
  5. 5. India's stock market grew 23-fold since 2000
  6. 6. Indian phone users now average 25 GB of data monthly
  7. 7. India's metro network quadrupled in a decade
  8. 8. India now ships over a third of world rice exports
  9. 9. India went from 1% to 37% of Russia's crude sales
  10. 10. India's wild tigers have more than doubled since 2006
  11. 11. Two in three rickshaws sold in India are electric
  12. 12. Indians now file more patents at home than Germans
  13. 13. India published more science papers than Germany and Britain combined
  14. 14. India now holds more foreign reserves than Saudi Arabia
  15. 15. Open defecation in India fell from 73% to 7%
241.6bn

UPI transactions in India's FY2025-26 (April 2025–March 2026), per NPCI.

281.3bn

Transactions processed by Visa worldwide in its FY2026 (to September 2026).

~13,500×

UPI's growth in a decade, from 1.78 crore (0.018bn) transactions in FY2016-17.

Source: NPCI via India Ministry of Finance (UPI at 10, 2026); Visa Inc., Fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026 earnings release, 2026
the numbers & method
India's UPI now handles 86% as many payments as Visa. Source: NPCI via India Ministry of Finance (UPI at 10, 2026); Visa Inc., Fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026 earnings release, 2026.
Transactions (bn)UPI FY2016-17 (bn)
Visa, worldwide (FY to Sep 2026)281.30.0
UPI, India (FY to Mar 2026)241.60.0

Claim types Fact

UPI FY2025-26 = 24,161.69 crore transactions (NPCI data quoted in government 'UPI turns 10' material, reported by YourStory, TaxTMI, ABS News Service); consistent with NPCI monthly data (218.6bn Apr–Feb plus 22.6bn in March). Visa figure is processed transactions on VisaNet, fiscal year Oct 2025–Sep 2026; the two 12-month windows overlap by six months. Visa counts card payments across 200+ countries; UPI is mostly small domestic transfers and merchant payments, so value per transaction is far lower. 86% = 241.6 / 281.3 (derived). FY2016-17 UPI given as 1.78 crore or about 2 crore depending on source.

Published 30 Oct 2026

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