Historical record of Digital India! ‘Payment Index’ crosses 500 for the first time, India moves towards cashless economy

India’s Digital Payment Index: Digital transactions are increasing rapidly in India, due to which the Digital Payment Index (DPI) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has crossed 500 for the first time to reach 516.76 (by September 2025), which was 493.22 in March 2025. The central bank said the main reason for the increase in RBI-DPI was strong growth in parameters such as payments performance and payment supporting factors across the country.

The RBI is publishing the Digital Payments Index from January 1, 2021, with March 2018 as the base year, to assess the extent of digitization of payments across the country.

What was India’s index in 2019?

The base period of March 2018 was given 100 points. One year later, in March 2019, this index increased to 153.47. The index is published every six months from 2021 and has seen rapid growth over the past few years. The main reason for the increase in RBI-DPI is the strong growth in parameters such as payment performance and payment enabling factors across the country. The Digital Payments Index comprises five broad parameters that measure the expansion and diffusion of digital payments in the country over time.

In these parameters, the weightage of the factor facilitating payments is 25 percent, while the weightage of the factor of demand side payment infrastructure is 10 percent, the weightage of the factor of supply side payment infrastructure is 10 percent, the weightage of payment performance is the highest at 45 and the weight of consumer centricity is the least at 5 percent. Each criterion also includes sub-criteria, which include different measurable indicators.

Important role of UPI in digital payment

in the country digital payment UPI has played an important role in promoting the use of UPI. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recognized the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as the world’s largest retail instant payment system by transaction volume. This information comes from the IMF’s June 2025 report ‘Growing Retail Digital Payments (The Value of Interoperability)’ Was given in.

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Brazil’s name in second place

Additionally, ACI Worldwide’s ‘Prime Time for Real-Time’ According to the 2024 report, UPI tops the global real-time payments system with 49 percent share and 129.3 billion transaction volume. Brazil ranked second with 14 percent market share and 37.4 percent transaction volume, followed by Thailand with 8 percent market share and $20.4 billion transaction volume. China ranked fourth with 6 percent market share and 17.2 billion transaction volume.