PrelimsBanking
UPI Completes 10 Years of Operations
UPINPCIDigital Public Infrastructure
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