IMF Declares India’s UPI a Global Model for Digital Payment Transformation.
Banking & Finance
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently praised India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as a blueprint for digital payment innovation, recognizing India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) model as a replicable framework for countries aiming to boost financial inclusion and economic resilience.
- The IMF highlighted India’s modular digital architecture—comprising UPI, Aadhaar, DigiLocker, and Account Aggregator—as a powerful, interoperable ecosystem that promotes innovation and reduces costs in financial services. It called this structure a ‘building block approach’ that enables scalability across developing economies.
- India’s UPI system accounted for nearly 84% of total digital payment volumes in the country during FY 2024–25, processing over 186 billion transactions amounting to ₹261 trillion.
- This makes UPI responsible for nearly 48% of all real-time digital payments globally, according to the RBI and NPCI reports.
Main Point :- (i) The IMF noted that UPI’s design—based on open APIs and real-time settlement—has encouraged competition among payment service providers while ensuring universal access for users and merchants. Its zero-MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) model further promotes merchant adoption, especially in small-town and rural India.
(ii) The success of UPI is also attributed to its role in strengthening India’s welfare delivery mechanisms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, India leveraged UPI along with Aadhaar and Jan Dhan to implement rapid Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes, helping over 300 million citizens receive timely support.
(iii) India’s DPI model is now being replicated globally, with UPI-based payment systems already adopted or piloted in countries like Singapore, UAE, Bhutan, Nepal, and France. The RBI and NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) aim to expand UPI to over 20 countries by 2029 under the Global DPI Export Strategy.
About International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Established : 1944
Headquarters: Washington D.C., United States
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