Source: Entrackr
New Delhi, 1st September: India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) passed a huge milestone in August 2025, processing 20.01 billion transactions, adjusting computational errors from the previous month. This was the first time it has processed more than 20 billion transactions in a single month. The total value of those transactions was ₹24.85 lakh crore.
Increase in Recent Months
UPI has continued its recent growth:
- June 2025: 18.40 billion transactions, with a value of ₹24.04 lakh crore
- July 2025: 19.47 billion transactions, an increase of 5.8% from June, value increased to ₹25.08 lakh crore
- August 2025: 20.01 billion transactions, a 2.8% increase from July. However, the value decreased 0.9% month-on-month.
Compared to the previous year in August, UPI volumes increased by 34 percent while value grew by 21 percent. On average, UPI processed 645 million transactions on a daily basis, which was worth about ₹80,177 crore. On August 2, it set a record with 700 million transactions processed in a single day.
Effects of Gaming Prohibition
This growth occurred despite payments via real-money-gaming platforms, which had taken up the majority of UPI payments earlier on, having been reduced. Subsequently, most of these platforms shut down after Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, on August 21.
Key Players
As of July, PhonePe was the biggest UPI app with 8.93 billion transactions and had a 45.88% share. Google Pay was second with 6.92 billion transactions, or 35.56% share. In transaction value, PhonePe had a 48.64% share of value of transactions; Google Pay held 35.53%.
Merchant Categories
- UPI payments are growing across verticals.
- Groceries & Supermarkets – 3.03 billion transactions of ₹64882 crore.
- Fast Food – 1.22 billion transactions.
- Restaurants – 1.15 billion transactions
- Digital Goods & Games (including real-money gaming) – 351 million transactions of ₹10,076 crore.
- NPIC has not yet made the category breakdown for August available.
The Bigger Picture
UPI’s rise from 18.40 billion transactions in June to 20 billion in August demonstrates its increasing integration into daily life in India. From peer-to-peer transfers to merchant payments, UPI has firmly established itself as the backbone of the country’s digital payments ecosystem.
In conclusion, surpassing 20 billion transactions in August underscores UPI’s advancing position as the backbone of India’s digital payments ecosystem.
