India's UPI Marks 10 Years With 13,000-Fold Transaction Growth

India's Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, marked a decade of operation on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and government officials celebrating the system's transformation of the nation's financial landscape. Launched on August 25, 2016, by the National Payments Corporation of India under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India, the digital payment platform has grown from a pilot with 21 banks into a global benchmark for real-time transactions. In a statement, Prime Minister Modi said the scale and reach of India's digital payment revolution are something every Indian must be proud of. He noted that the introduction of UPI marked a major turning point in the country's digital payments journey. The Prime Minister also invited citizens to share their experiences with the system and how it has impacted their lives. The growth trajectory of UPI has been exponential. According to a Ministry of Finance statement, annual transaction volume surged from 1.78 crore in the 2016-17 fiscal year to over 24,162 crore in 2025-26, an increase of nearly 13,000 times. The total value of these transactions grew from 0.