Beyond UPI: everything else India pays with

UPI made 85.6% of India’s payments in 2025-26. Everything else, from a ₹133 toll to bank transfers worth lakhs, carried 90.5% of the money.

What does the average RTGS payment come to?

RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) is how banks move large sums, one payment at a time. How large is the average one? Pick the closest.

Prices are rough, for a sense of scale only.

Average payments in 2025-26 ran from ₹133 for a toll to ₹65.0 lakh for RTGS

Each bar ends at the method’s average payment; each gridline is ten times the last. The thicker the bar, the larger the method’s share of all money paid.

Each method’s value over its number of payments, 2025-26. DBIE, payment system indicators.

The average RTGS payment was 4,995 times the average UPI payment in 2025-26

Each average payment is laid out in ₹500 notes, a bundle being 100 notes, ₹50,000.

Each method’s value over its number of payments, 2025-26; notes and coins of the current series. DBIE, payment system indicators.

RTGS carried 68.4% of payment value in 2025-26, in 0.12% of payments

UPI made 85.6% of payments but carried 9.5% of the money. The two walls play each month from November 2019.

By numbera tile for each 10 crore payments
By valuea tile for each ₹1 lakh crore
  • RRTGS
  • NNEFT
  • IIMPS
  • ChCheques
  • CrCredit cards
  • DDebit cards
  • PPPI
  • TTolls
  • OOther
  • UUPI
November 2019308 crore payments, UPI 39.5%₹117.4 lakh crore, RTGS 73.9%
20192026

RTGS moved ₹6.23 lakh crore a day in 2025-26, in 9.6 lakh payments

Each RTGS payment settles on its own, at once, between the sending and receiving banks’ accounts at the RBI.

RTGS value and number for the year over 365 days. DBIE, payment system indicators.

RBIRBIBANKBANK₹₹BANKBANK₹₹SENDERStarts the paymentSENDER’S BANKDebits and sends the messageRBISettles it, gross and finalBENEFICIARY’S BANKCredits within 30 minutesRECIPIENTReceives the money
2015-16₹2.26 lakh crore a day2.7 lakh payments a day1.0x the value of 2015-16
2015-162025-26

Faster and denser as the value grows: speed is in proportion to the year’s RTGS value.

The RBI: “The beneficiary bank must credit the beneficiary's account within 30 minutes of receiving the fund transfer message.” Source

RTGS became available round the clock, every day of the year, from 00:30 hours on 14 December 2020. Source

NEFT settled 2.77 crore payments a day in 2025-26, in 48 half-hourly batches

NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) gathers payments and settles them every half hour; a NEFT payment averaged ₹49,731. IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) credits each one at once; its average rose 2.1x from 2015-16, to ₹15,516.

NEFT and IMPS by financial year, over 365 days. DBIE, payment system indicators.

NEFT became available round the clock from 16 December 2019, settling in 48 half-hourly batches a day. Source

Cheques peaked at 146.1 crore in 2007-08; there were 55.9 crore in 2025-26

In 1970-71 there were 15.1 crore. Cheques and other paper were 15.6% of all payments in 2015-16, and 0.20% in 2025-26.

1970-7115.1 crore cheques and other paper
1970-712025-26

Each leaf stands for one crore cheques and other paper instruments cleared in the year.

The average cheque has risen every year since 2016-17, to ₹1.28 lakh

It was ₹67,091 in 2016-17. Cheques and drafts carried ₹71.5 lakh crore in 2025-26, all cleared through the cheque truncation system (CTS).

Paper-based instruments by financial year: value over number. DBIE, payment system indicators.

2015-162025-26

The RBI required banks to bring all their branches into image-based cheque truncation (CTS) by 30 September 2021. Source

Debit cards outnumber credit cards 8.8 to 1, but credit cards are used for 4.7 times the payments

Credit-card payments first passed debit-card payments in January 2023 and have stayed ahead every month since.

November 2019 83.1 crore debit cards, 41.8 crore payments 5.4 crore credit cards, 17.6 crore payments
20192026

Each card is one crore cards in issue at the month’s end; each flash, 5 crore card payments in the month.

The RBI: “the decline in debit card transactions, both in volume and value, is potentially driven by the rise of digital wallets, UPI, and credit card adoption”. Source

There were 64.7 UPI QR codes for every PoS machine in March 2026

Point-of-sale (PoS) machines, where cards are tapped or swiped at a shop, rose from 47.2 lakh in March 2021 to 117.7 lakh in March 2026, and stood at 102.1 lakh in August 2026.

PoS machines and UPI QR codes, end of month. DBIE, payment system indicators.

August 202679.6 UPI QR codes for each PoS machine81.30 crore QR codes, 102.1 lakh PoS machines
20202026

A Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) payment averaged ₹290 in 2025-26, across 987 crore payments

PPIs are wallets and prepaid cards, loaded first and spent later: gift cards, metro cards, meal cards and app wallets.

Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI): payments by financial year; instruments in issue at the month’s end. DBIE, payment system indicators.

An average day of 2025-2618:0000:0006:0012:0018:0024:002.02 crore PPI payments so far, ₹290 each on average

A toll paid from a bank account averaged ₹133 in 2025-26, 4.45 lakh tolls a day

These are National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) payments from a bank account, read off a FASTag at the toll; tolls paid from FASTag wallets count as PPI payments.

NETC (linked to a bank account) by financial year, over 365 days. DBIE, payment system indicators.

4.45 lakh toll payments from bank accounts on an average day of 2025-26₹133 each, on averageThe tolls rising off the vehicles are round figures for illustration; trucks pay more than cars.

All lanes at national-highway fee plazas were declared FASTag lanes from the midnight of 15/16 February 2021. Source

From 2015-16 the average debit-card payment rose 2.6x and the average cheque 1.7x

Each line runs from a method’s average in 2015-16 (or its first year with a count) to 2025-26. UPI and cash are the subject of The phone pays, the cash stays; bank credit to households, of How households took over the bank loan book.

SOURCES

Reserve Bank of India, payment system indicators, as published on DBIE: the annual table (new format) for payments by method, 2015-16 to 2025-26; the annual table (old format) for cheque clearances, 1970-71 to 2014-15; and the monthly table, from November 2019, for payments by method, cards, PoS machines and UPI QR codes.

Dates and quotations: RBI press releases and circulars on RTGS (2004 and 2020), NEFT (2019) and the cheque truncation system (2021); the RBI’s RTGS FAQ for the 30 minutes a receiving bank has to credit a payment; the RBI’s Payment System Report, December 2025; and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on FASTag (Press Information Bureau, 14-02-2021). Each is linked where it is shown.

DOWNLOADS

Payments by method, each year from 2015-16 (CSV)

Payments by method, each month from November 2019 (CSV)

Cheques and other paper instruments since 1970-71 (CSV)

Cards, PoS machines and UPI QR codes by month (CSV)

METHOD

Averages. A method’s average payment is the year’s value over the year’s number. Volumes are in lakh payments and values in ₹ crore as DBIE prints them. An average day is the year’s total over 365 days, and NEFT’s batch is that day over its 48 batches.

Notes and walls. The note tower pays each average in the fewest notes and coins of the current series, with ₹500 notes in bundles of 100; loose notes are drawn twice their thickness so one alone shows. On the walls a tile is 10 crore payments or ₹1 lakh crore in the month; turned over, the same number of tiles is shared out by value. A card on the card wall is one crore cards at the month’s end, a flash five crore payments. A leaf on the cheque wall is one crore cheques; each bundle in the air over the RTGS banks, ₹10,000 crore. The cars at the toll plaza are a picture, not a count.

Cheques. The old table’s cheque clearances run to 2014-15 and the new table’s paper-based instruments from 2015-16; both report the same number for 2015-16 (1,096 million, 10,964 lakh). DBIE does not split cheques from drafts and other paper. The average cheque before 2015-16 is not shown: it is in each year’s rupees.

Cards. Cards, PoS machines and QR codes are month-end stocks and are never added across months. The RBI notes that card data from November 2019 may not compare with earlier months. DBIE prints no PPI payment count for September 2023; that month’s PPI tiles count as other.

Left out. Cash withdrawals are in “The phone pays, the cash stays”. DBIE has no separate series for bill payments (BBPS), the e-rupee or FASTag wallets. Methods are shown side by side; nothing here says one caused a change in another.