Why in News?
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) completed 10 years on August 25, 2026, after growing into the world's largest real-time payment system by transaction volume.
How did UPI become so important?
- UPI allows instant bank-to-bank payments through mobile apps without requiring users to know detailed bank-account information for every transaction.
- It was launched by NPCI in 2016 under RBI oversight and has become the dominant mode in India's digital-payments ecosystem.
- Its success has also made UPI an important part of India's Digital Public Infrastructure and an increasingly exported payment model.
Exam Connect
- UPI → launched by NPCI in 2016
- NPCI → umbrella organisation for retail payments
- RBI → regulatory oversight