UPI Transaction Volume Grows 13,000 Times Since 2016-17, Says Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has recorded about 13,000 times growth in annual transaction volume since 2016-17 and now processes nearly 80 crore transactions daily.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) new data centre and cybersecurity training institute in Odisha, Sitharaman said UPI has become the world’s largest real-time payment system.

“Its annual volume has grown about 13,000 times since 2016-17, and it now carries over 2,400 crore transactions in a single month or nearly 80 crore transactions each day,” she said.

Sitharaman highlighted the growth of digital payments while speaking about the government’s focus on technology and the Digital India initiative. She said the fintech ecosystem developed around these initiatives is helping bring first-time users into formal financial services, including credit, insurance and investment.

RBI Data Centre To Support Critical Payment Systems

The minister also highlighted the role of digital infrastructure in supporting India’s financial system. She described a data centre as the “vault of the digital age” and said the new RBI campus would add domestic capacity for systems at the heart of the country’s payments infrastructure.

The campus will house the central bank’s mission-critical systems, including the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system and the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system. The cybersecurity training institute, which will have its own research wing, will build expertise in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and data centres.

Sitharaman also referred to the government’s policy support for data-centre infrastructure. Data centres were granted infrastructure status in 2022, while the Union Budget 2026-27 announced a tax holiday for foreign companies providing global cloud services from data centres in India.

Digital Infrastructure And Financial System

Sitharaman said the RBI's new campus would help protect India's financial systems and sustain the flow of payments that supports the economy.

“In that same spirit, the Reserve Bank of India and its new campus will serve the nation,” she said, adding that the facility would help protect the country's financial systems and sustain the flow of payments.

She added that the country's ambition, as the RBI enters its centenary decade and India moves towards Viksit Bharat, is to build a financial system that is trusted globally and reliable for every Indian.