UPI's next growth phase to focus on rural, offline solutions: NPCI

NPCI CTO Vishal Anand Kanvaty stated that despite record transaction volumes, UPI has significant room for growth. The focus will be on reaching rural populations, developing offline solutions, expanding internationally, and leveraging AI technology.

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) still has significant room to expand, particularly in reaching rural populations and developing offline payment solutions, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) Chief Technology Officer Vishal Anand Kanvaty said in an exclusive interaction with ANI on Wednesday.

“It's still early days, I would say, there’s still lot of scope for growth,” Kanvaty said when asked about UPI crossing 24.5 billion transactions in August and its next phase of growth. He said reaching rural populations and developing solutions that work in offline environments remain key challenges for UPI as it expands further. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and I think we will keep growing and credit would be important aspect as we grow along,” he said.

Expanding Global Footprint

Kanvaty also said NPCI expects UPI's international footprint to expand further, particularly in markets where a large number of Indians travel. “We had good success with UAE, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Nepal and a lot of Indians are also travelling. Our strategy has always been where a lot of Indians are travelling… we want to work in those countries,” he said.

The comments come as UPI has expanded from a domestic digital payments platform into a cross-border payments system. A recent Ministry of Finance release said UPI was operational in 11 countries and accounted for nearly 49 per cent of global real-time payment transaction volume in 2025. The release said UPI processed more than 24,162 crore transactions in FY2025-26, with daily transactions averaging 66 crore in 2026. Monthly transaction volumes crossed 2,300 crore for the first time in May, while July recorded a record 2,366 crore transactions.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence

Kanvaty said NPCI is also expanding its use of artificial intelligence across its operations. “We are early adopters of AI, almost 7-8 years back we have started to use AI for fraud detection,” he said.

The use of AI has now widened to areas including dispute resolution and internal productivity, he said, adding that there was “a lot of scope for AI” going ahead.

The Next Phase of UPI

The NPCI CTO said the next phase of UPI's development would therefore involve addressing access gaps while continuing its expansion into international markets and using newer technologies to strengthen the digital payments ecosystem.

The release further added that the next decade of UPI is expected to focus on bringing more users and merchants into the ecosystem, supported by technological advancement and greater financial inclusion. (ANI)

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