---
title: "UPI vs Visa & Mastercard: India’s Payments Rewiring"
slug: upi-vs-cards
type: data-index
sector: finance
canonical_url: https://deepstoryresearch.com/data/upi-vs-cards
series: [upi_volume, upi_value, instrument_shift, network_scale, cost_per_sale, us_swipe_fees, mdr_threshold, incentive_outlay, app_share, merchant_categories, cash_gdp]
series_count: 11
data_point_count: 64
data_as_of: 2026-08
source_quality: curated_snapshot
tier: free
generated_at: 2026-08-11
---

# UPI vs Visa & Mastercard: India’s Payments Rewiring
_What changes if India starts charging for UPI_

> Deepstory Research context file · **Free tier** · <https://deepstoryresearch.com/data/upi-vs-cards>
> Self-contained AI briefing. Drop into an LLM window or RAG pipeline.

## AI research use contract

- Treat this file as source-grounded context, not a live database. Quote `source_ref` and `data_as_of` when using numbers.
- Separate `FACT`, `ESTIMATE`, `FORECAST`, `TARGET`, and `INFERENCE`. If a row basis is unclear, say it is unclear.
- Prefer T1/T2 sources for hard facts; use T3/T4 sources as context that should be checked before money, legal, medical, operational, or policy decisions.
- Keep answer structure clean: first say what the data says, then what you infer, then what would change the conclusion.

## Research upgrade checklist

- Always state whether a UPI-vs-card comparison is on transaction COUNT or on VALUE — the two invert the ranking.
- Separate the legal framework (the 2026 amendment) from a notified rate; no MDR rate has been gazetted.
- Track average ticket size, not just volume — it is the earliest signal of threshold gaming.
- Add a prompt that forces the AI to split incidence between merchant size, merchant category, and consumer.

## TL;DR — index summary

UPI processed 24,161.69 crore transactions worth Rs 314.23 lakh crore in FY2025-26 — a transaction count within 6% of Visa's entire global network — and earns essentially nothing, because MDR has been zero by statute since January 2020. The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 does not charge for UPI; it removes the legal bar on charging. The arithmetic of who would pay is now visible: transactions above Rs 2,000 are ~5% of volume but ~65% of value.

## What this index covers

Eleven series: the UPI decade in volume and value, the instrument shift away from debit cards, UPI against the global card networks, merchant cost per sale, US swipe fees, the Rs 2,000 threshold, the government incentive outlay, UPI app concentration, merchant categories by value, and currency in circulation.

**Series in this index:**

- `upi_volume` — How many UPI transactions per financial year.
- `upi_value` — How much money moved over UPI per financial year.
- `instrument_shift` — What India paid with in 2019 versus 2024.
- `network_scale` — UPI against Visa on annual transaction count.
- `cost_per_sale` — What accepting a payment costs a merchant, by rail.
- `us_swipe_fees` — What US merchants pay to accept cards, by year.
- `mdr_threshold` — How much UPI activity sits above the proposed line.
- `incentive_outlay` — What the exchequer pays to keep UPI free.
- `app_share` — Which apps intermediate UPI volume.
- `merchant_categories` — Which merchant categories carry the most UPI value.
- `cash_gdp` — Currency in circulation as a share of GDP.

**Entities tracked:** NPCI, RBI, Ministry of Finance, Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm.

## Key findings

- UPI grew from 2 crore transactions in FY2016-17 to 24,161.69 crore in FY2025-26 — ~12,000x on volume but only ~4,000x on value, so average ticket size collapsed (pib-upi-decade / lok-sabha-upi-fy).
- Debit card transactions FELL from 4,953mn (CY2019) to 1,738mn (CY2024); credit cards roughly doubled. UPI substituted for debit, not credit (rbi-psr-cards).
- UPI 241.6bn transactions (FY2025-26) against Visa 257.5bn (fiscal 2025) — but Visa moved $14tn of payments volume (visa-fy25).
- US merchants paid $198.25bn to accept cards in 2025 at an average 2.36%; Indian merchants pay 0.00% on UPI (nilson-2025 / pib-incentive-scheme).
- Transactions above Rs 2,000 are ~5% of UPI volume and ~65% of UPI value — the arithmetic behind the proposed threshold (mdr-proposal-2026).
- The government paid Rs 8,730 crore of incentives FY22–FY25, covering only ~11% of an industry cost estimated at Rs 20,000 crore a year (pib-incentive-scheme / outlook-upi-cost).
- PhonePe and Google Pay together take 82.3% of UPI volume (npci-app-share-jun26).

## Evidence basis map

The free tables above show `source_ref` but not the row-level `value_basis`. This section mirrors the visible rows only, so AI tools can separate observed values from estimates, forecasts, targets, and derived values.

| series | row | source_ref | value_basis |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| upi_volume | fy=FY17; txn_cr=2 | pib-upi-decade | PIB decade release: "just 2 crore transactions in FY 2016-17" |
| upi_volume | fy=FY18; txn_cr=91.5 | upi-secondary-series | 915 million UPI transactions in FY2017-18, restated from NPCI monthly data (= 91.5 crore) |
| upi_volume | fy=FY19; txn_cr=535.3 | upi-secondary-series | 5,353 million UPI transactions in FY2018-19, restated from NPCI monthly data (= 535.3 crore) |
| upi_volume | fy=FY20; txn_cr=1251.9 | upi-secondary-series | 12.52 billion UPI transactions in FY2019-20 (= 1,251.9 crore) |
| upi_volume | fy=FY21; txn_cr=2228 | upi-secondary-series | 22.28 billion UPI transactions in FY2020-21 (= 2,228 crore) |
| upi_value | fy=FY17; value_lakh_cr=0.07 | pib-upi-decade | PIB decade release: ₹0.07 lakh crore in FY 2016-17 |
| upi_value | fy=FY18; value_lakh_cr=1.2 | upi-secondary-series | Approximately ₹1.2 lakh crore in FY2017-18, restated from NPCI monthly data |
| upi_value | fy=FY19; value_lakh_cr=8.8 | upi-secondary-series | Approximately ₹8.8 lakh crore in FY2018-19, restated from NPCI monthly data |
| upi_value | fy=FY20; value_lakh_cr=21.32 | upi-secondary-series | ₹21.32 trillion in FY2019-20 (= ₹21.32 lakh crore) |
| upi_value | fy=FY21; value_lakh_cr=41.03 | upi-secondary-series | ₹41.03 trillion in FY2020-21 (= ₹41.03 lakh crore) |
| instrument_shift | instrument=UPI; cy2019_mn=10790; cy2024_mn=172210 | ibef-rbi-upi | UPI volumes 10.79 billion in CY19 and 172.21 billion in CY24 |
| instrument_shift | instrument=Credit cards; cy2019_mn=2087; cy2024_mn=4472 | rbi-psr-cards | RBI: credit card transactions 2,087 million (2019) to 4,472 million (2024) |
| instrument_shift | instrument=Debit cards; cy2019_mn=4953; cy2024_mn=1738 | rbi-psr-cards | RBI: debit card transactions 4,953 million (2019) to 1,738 million (2024) |
| network_scale | network=UPI (FY2025-26); txn_bn=241.6 | pib-upi-decade | 24,161.69 crore transactions in FY2025-26, expressed in billions (1 crore = 0.01 billion) |
| network_scale | network=Visa (fiscal 2025); txn_bn=257.5 | visa-fy25 | Visa processed 257.5 billion transactions in fiscal 2025 |
| cost_per_sale | rail=US credit card (Visa/MC avg, 2025); pct=2.36 | nilson-2025 | Average Visa and Mastercard credit card swipe-fee rate of 2.36% in 2025 |
| cost_per_sale | rail=UPI in India today; pct=0 | pib-incentive-scheme | Zero MDR on BHIM-UPI since January 2020 (s.10A PSS Act 2007; s.269SU Income-tax Act 1961) |
| cost_per_sale | rail=Proposed UPI MDR — low end; pct=0.25 | storyboard-mdr-2000 | Model under evaluation: MDR of around 0.25% on P2M UPI transactions above ₹2,000 |
| cost_per_sale | rail=Proposed UPI MDR — high end; pct=0.5 | storyboard-mdr-2000 | Model under evaluation: MDR of up to 0.5% on P2M UPI transactions above ₹2,000 |
| us_swipe_fees | year=2009; usd_b=62.1 | nilson-2022 | Merchant processing fees of $62.1 billion in 2009 |
| us_swipe_fees | year=2014; usd_b=78.09 | nilson-2022 | Merchant processing fees of $78.09 billion in 2014 |
| us_swipe_fees | year=2022; usd_b=160.7 | nilson-2022 | Merchant processing fees of $160.70 billion in 2022 |
| us_swipe_fees | year=2023; usd_b=172.05 | nilson-2024 | Merchant processing fees of $172.05 billion in 2023 |
| us_swipe_fees | year=2024; usd_b=187.2 | nilson-2024 | Merchant processing fees exceeded $187.20 billion in 2024, up 8.7% on 2023 |
| mdr_threshold | measure=Share of UPI volume above ₹2,000; pct=5 | mdr-proposal-2026 | Official estimate: transactions above ₹2,000 are around 5% of total UPI transaction volume |
| mdr_threshold | measure=Share of UPI value above ₹2,000; pct=65 | mdr-proposal-2026 | Official estimate: transactions above ₹2,000 represent nearly 65% of overall transaction value |
| incentive_outlay | fy=FY2021-22; inr_cr=1389 | pib-incentive-scheme | Incentive scheme allocation of ₹1,389 crore for FY2021-22 |
| incentive_outlay | fy=FY2022-23; inr_cr=2210 | pib-incentive-scheme | Incentive scheme allocation of ₹2,210 crore for FY2022-23 |
| incentive_outlay | fy=FY2023-24; inr_cr=3631 | pib-incentive-scheme | Incentive scheme allocation of ₹3,631 crore for FY2023-24 |
| incentive_outlay | fy=FY2024-25; inr_cr=1500 | pib-incentive-scheme | Cabinet approved ₹1,500 crore for FY2024-25 low-value BHIM-UPI P2M incentives |
| app_share | app=PhonePe; pct=44.56 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026: PhonePe 44.56% of UPI payment volume |
| app_share | app=Google Pay; pct=37.76 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026: Google Pay 37.76% share |
| app_share | app=Paytm; pct=6.88 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026: Paytm 6.88% share |
| app_share | app=Navi; pct=2.55 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026: Navi 2.55% share |
| app_share | app=super.money; pct=1.32 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026: super.money 1.32% share |
| merchant_categories | category=Groceries & supermarkets; inr_cr=79705.02 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026 category value: ₹79,705.02 crore |
| merchant_categories | category=Debt collection agencies; inr_cr=69032.6 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026 category value: ₹69,032.60 crore |
| merchant_categories | category=Securities brokers & dealers; inr_cr=60945.24 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026 category value: ₹60,945.24 crore |
| merchant_categories | category=Fuel & CNG stations (QR); inr_cr=47183.84 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026 category value: ₹47,183.84 crore |
| merchant_categories | category=Utility bills; inr_cr=23911.27 | npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI June 2026 category value: ₹23,911.27 crore |
| cash_gdp | period=Mar 2016; pct=12.1 | cic-gdp-2025 | Currency-to-GDP ratio of 12.1% in March 2016 |
| cash_gdp | period=FY2021; pct=14.5 | cic-gdp-2025 | Currency-to-GDP ratio surged to 14.5% in FY21 |
| cash_gdp | period=2025; pct=11.11 | cic-gdp-2025 | Currency-to-GDP ratio of 11.11% in 2025 |

## The series (per-chart briefings)

### UPI annual volume — bar
**Direct answer:** How many UPI transactions per financial year.
**Time bracket:** FY2017–FY2026

| fy | txn_cr | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FY17 | 2 | pib-upi-decade |
| FY18 | 91.5 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY19 | 535.3 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY20 | 1251.9 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY21 | 2228 | upi-secondary-series |

_+5 more rows on the live page and in the full working dataset._

**Read:** Absolute annual additions were still rising in FY2026 — the network has not saturated.
**Caveat:** FY2018–FY2021 come from a secondary restatement of NPCI monthly data, not a government table.

### UPI annual value — area
**Direct answer:** How much money moved over UPI per financial year.
**Time bracket:** FY2017–FY2026

| fy | value_lakh_cr | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FY17 | 0.07 | pib-upi-decade |
| FY18 | 1.2 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY19 | 8.8 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY20 | 21.32 | upi-secondary-series |
| FY21 | 41.03 | upi-secondary-series |

_+5 more rows on the live page and in the full working dataset._

**Read:** Value grew 4,000x against volume 12,000x — ticket size is still compressing.

### Instrument shift — grouped-bar
**Direct answer:** What India paid with in 2019 versus 2024.
**Time bracket:** CY2019 vs CY2024

| instrument | cy2019_mn | cy2024_mn | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| UPI | 10790 | 172210 | ibef-rbi-upi |
| Credit cards | 2087 | 4472 | rbi-psr-cards |
| Debit cards | 4953 | 1738 | rbi-psr-cards |

**Read:** Debit card volume fell 65% in absolute terms. That is the franchise UPI destroyed.

### Network scale — hbar
**Direct answer:** UPI against Visa on annual transaction count.
**Time bracket:** FY2026 vs FY2025

| network | txn_bn | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| UPI (FY2025-26) | 241.6 | pib-upi-decade |
| Visa (fiscal 2025) | 257.5 | visa-fy25 |

**Read:** Comparable on count, an order of magnitude apart on value.
**Caveat:** Mastercard reports gross dollar volume, not a comparable switched-transaction count, so it is omitted.

### Cost per sale — hbar
**Direct answer:** What accepting a payment costs a merchant, by rail.
**Time bracket:** current + proposed

| rail | pct | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| US credit card (Visa/MC avg, 2025) | 2.36 | nilson-2025 |
| UPI in India today | 0 | pib-incentive-scheme |
| Proposed UPI MDR — low end | 0.25 | storyboard-mdr-2000 |
| Proposed UPI MDR — high end | 0.5 | storyboard-mdr-2000 |

**Read:** Even at the top of the proposed band, UPI would cost a fifth of the US card rate.
**Caveat:** The US 2.36% is a realised annual average; the Indian 0.25–0.5% is a proposed headline rate on a subset. Scale comparison, not rate equivalence.

### US swipe fees — bar
**Direct answer:** What US merchants pay to accept cards, by year.
**Time bracket:** 2009–2025

| year | usd_b | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2009 | 62.1 | nilson-2022 |
| 2014 | 78.09 | nilson-2022 |
| 2022 | 160.7 | nilson-2022 |
| 2023 | 172.05 | nilson-2024 |
| 2024 | 187.2 | nilson-2024 |

_+1 more row on the live page and in the full working dataset._

**Read:** Fees rose 3.2x since 2009 — faster than volume, because the rate rose too.
**Caveat:** Gap between 2014 and 2022; intervening years are omitted, not interpolated.

### The Rs 2,000 threshold — hbar
**Direct answer:** How much UPI activity sits above the proposed line.
**Time bracket:** snapshot

| measure | pct | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Share of UPI volume above ₹2,000 | 5 | mdr-proposal-2026 |
| Share of UPI value above ₹2,000 | 65 | mdr-proposal-2026 |

**Read:** 5% of volume, 65% of value — reaches the money, misses the tea stall.

### Incentive outlay — bar
**Direct answer:** What the exchequer pays to keep UPI free.
**Time bracket:** FY2022–FY2025

| fy | inr_cr | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FY2021-22 | 1389 | pib-incentive-scheme |
| FY2022-23 | 2210 | pib-incentive-scheme |
| FY2023-24 | 3631 | pib-incentive-scheme |
| FY2024-25 | 1500 | pib-incentive-scheme |

**Read:** The subsidy is falling while volume and cost rise. That is the fiscal engine behind the bill.

### App concentration — donut
**Direct answer:** Which apps intermediate UPI volume.
**Time bracket:** June 2026

| app | pct | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| PhonePe | 44.56 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Google Pay | 37.76 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Paytm | 6.88 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Navi | 2.55 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| super.money | 1.32 | npci-app-share-jun26 |

_+5 more rows on the live page and in the full working dataset._

**Read:** A duopoly on the interface layer of a rail built to prevent one.
**Caveat:** The ten listed apps sum to ~95.7%; the residual is not individually disclosed and is omitted rather than shown as a synthetic slice.

### Merchant categories — hbar
**Direct answer:** Which merchant categories carry the most UPI value.
**Time bracket:** June 2026

| category | inr_cr | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Groceries & supermarkets | 79705.02 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Debt collection agencies | 69032.6 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Securities brokers & dealers | 60945.24 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Fuel & CNG stations (QR) | 47183.84 | npci-app-share-jun26 |
| Utility bills | 23911.27 | npci-app-share-jun26 |

_+5 more rows on the live page and in the full working dataset._

**Read:** This is the incidence map — brokers, fuel and debt repayment sit almost entirely above Rs 2,000.

### Cash persistence — line
**Direct answer:** Currency in circulation as a share of GDP.
**Time bracket:** 2016–2025

| period | pct | source_ref |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mar 2016 | 12.1 | cic-gdp-2025 |
| FY2021 | 14.5 | cic-gdp-2025 |
| 2025 | 11.11 | cic-gdp-2025 |

**Read:** Cash did not disappear. It remains a 0%-cost substitute at the high-ticket end.
**Caveat:** The ratio fell partly because nominal GDP grew; currency with the public more than doubled in absolute terms.

## Cross-series synthesis — why this matters

Read cost_per_sale against instrument_shift and the strategy becomes legible: a mandated-free rail did not out-compete cards on features, it out-competed them on price, and debit card volume collapsed 65% as a result. MDR does not reverse that — at 0.25–0.5% UPI still costs a fraction of card acceptance.

Read incentive_outlay against the Rs 20,000 crore cost estimate and the policy pressure is arithmetic, not ideological. The state has been funding ~11% of the cost of a rail carrying Rs 314 lakh crore, and the subsidy line has been shrinking since FY2023-24.

Read mdr_threshold against merchant_categories to get incidence. The Rs 2,000 line is politically survivable precisely because the categories above it — securities brokers, fuel, electronics, debt collection — are organised businesses, not the kirana economy. The uncomfortable case is debt collection, where a percentage fee falls on loan repayment.

Read cash_gdp last. It is the constraint on every scenario: a large merchant facing 0.5% on a high-ticket sale has a zero-cost, low-audit substitute available immediately.

## Entities & relationships

| Entity | What they do | Key stat | Relationship |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NPCI | Operates UPI and RuPay | 703 banks live | Sets the switching economics any MDR would flow through |
| RBI | Regulator | Publishes the Payment Systems Report | Owns the instrument-mix data this index is built on |
| Ministry of Finance | Policy and subsidy | Rs 8,730 crore FY22–FY25 | Author of both zero-MDR and the 2026 amendment |
| Visa | Global card network | 257.5bn transactions, $14tn, $40bn net revenue FY2025 | The scale benchmark and the priced-rail counterfactual |
| Mastercard | Global card network | $9.2tn gross dollar volume | Lost the same Indian debit franchise as Visa |
| RuPay | Domestic card scheme | ~18% of credit cards; leads India by credit transaction volume | The flank attack on cards that MDR on UPI does not address |
| PhonePe / Google Pay | UPI front end | 82.3% combined | Best placed to capture any new fee pool |

## Timeline of key events & decisions

- **Apr 2016** — UPI launches with 21 banks → the base of the 12,000x series
- **Nov 2016** — Demonetisation → the demand shock that seeded digital acceptance
- **Jan 2020** — Zero MDR made statutory (s.10A PSS Act, s.269SU IT Act) → the pricing decision this whole index measures
- **FY2021-22** — Incentive scheme begins at Rs 1,389 crore → the state starts paying what merchants do not
- **FY2023-24** — Incentive peaks at Rs 3,631 crore, then falls → subsidy diverges from cost
- **Aug 2026** — Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 → converts a statutory prohibition into a discretion

## Cross-industry ripple

- **Banking:** First revenue on a rail carried at cost since 2016; largest single beneficiary group. _(inference)_
- **Fintech / PSPs:** Payments shift from loss-leader for lending to a standalone P&L line. _(inference)_
- **Retail broking:** Rs 60,945 crore/month of UPI inflow sits almost entirely above Rs 2,000 — a percentage fee is effectively a transaction cost on retail investing flow. _(inference)_
- **Fuel and organised retail:** Low net margins mean 0.5% is a double-digit share of profit on a high-ticket sale. _(inference)_
- **Global card networks:** The regulatory asymmetry narrows, but a low-rate domestic MDR also becomes an argument other regulators can cite against 2.36%. _(inference)_

## Non-obvious reads (interpretation)

_This section is interpretation, not sourced fact — each item names the observation it is built on and a confidence level._

- **Observation:** Volume grew 12,000x while value grew 4,000x.
  **Read:** UPI did not mainly digitise existing payments — it created a new population of very small ones that had no electronic equivalent before. That is why 86% of P2M transactions are under Rs 500 and why a value-based fee misses almost all of them. _(confidence: high)_
- **Observation:** The Rs 2,000 threshold has no published indexation clause.
  **Read:** At 6% inflation an unindexed threshold captures materially more volume every year, expanding scope without any further policy decision. This is the least-discussed and most consequential design detail. _(confidence: medium)_
- **Observation:** RuPay already leads India by credit card transaction volume.
  **Read:** The naive read that MDR on UPI helps Visa and Mastercard is incomplete — their Indian erosion is now coming from RuPay credit-on-UPI, which an MDR on UPI does nothing to slow. _(confidence: medium)_

## Glossary / key terms

- **MDR** — Merchant discount rate — the fee a merchant pays, as a percentage of the sale, to accept a payment.
- **P2M / P2P** — Person-to-merchant and person-to-person. Only P2M is in scope of any published MDR proposal.
- **Interchange** — The portion of a card fee paid to the card-issuing bank. A component of the total merchant fee, not the whole of it.
- **Crore / lakh crore** — 10^7 and 10^12. 1 lakh crore = 1 trillion rupees.
- **Zero MDR** — The statutory bar, in force since January 2020, on charging merchants for BHIM-UPI and RuPay debit acceptance.

## How to use this with AI

Paste this file into an LLM context window (or a RAG store) and ask cross-series questions. The tables carry a `source_ref` per row; the source registry below maps each ref to a named source and a trust tier.

### Suggested prompts (multi-series)

```text
Using cost_per_sale, mdr_threshold and merchant_categories, model which merchant categories bear what share of a 0.35% MDR above Rs 2,000.
```

```text
Using upi_volume and upi_value, compute average ticket size by year and argue what an unindexed Rs 2,000 threshold does to scope by 2030.
```

```text
Using instrument_shift and network_scale, assess how much of Visa and Mastercard's Indian revenue loss an MDR on UPI would actually recover.
```

```text
Argue the case against MDR using incentive_outlay and cash_gdp together.
```

## Sources & trust

| ref | source | trust tier | url |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| pib-upi-decade | PIB / Ministry of Finance — UPI completes 10 years (30 Apr 2026) | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2257087 |
| lok-sabha-upi-fy | MoS Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Lok Sabha written reply (20 Jul 2026), via The Hans India | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/nearly-555-crore-users-onboarded-on-upi-by-june-fy26-transactions-cross-24161-crore-centre-1099415 |
| upi-secondary-series | IJFMR — restatement of the NPCI UPI monthly series, FY2017-18 to FY2020-21 | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.ijfmr.com/papers/2025/5/57783.pdf |
| rbi-psr-cards | RBI Payment Systems Report — credit vs debit card volumes and values, CY2019–CY2024 (via Business Standard, 23 Oct 2025) | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.business-standard.com/finance/news/credit-card-transactions-surge-but-debit-card-transactions-decline-rbi-125102301289_1.html |
| ibef-rbi-upi | IBEF — RBI Payment System Report: UPI 85% of payment volumes; UPI CY2019–CY2024 volume and value | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.ibef.org/news/unified-payments-interface-upi-accounts-for-85-of-payment-volumes-reserve-bank-of-india-rbi-s-payment-system-report |
| visa-fy25 | Visa Inc. Fiscal 2025 Annual Report | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://s29.q4cdn.com/385744025/files/doc_downloads/2025/Visa-Fiscal-2025-Annual-Report.pdf |
| nilson-2025 | Nilson Report / The Motley Fool — US merchant processing fees $198.25bn in 2025; average Visa+Mastercard credit rate 2.36% | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.fool.com/money/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/ |
| nilson-2024 | Nilson Report — Merchant Processing Fees in the United States Exceeded $187 Billion in 2024 | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/03/19/3045828/0/en/Merchant-Processing-Fees-in-the-United-States-Exceeded-187-Billion-in-2024.html |
| nilson-2022 | Nilson Report — US Merchant Processing Fees Top $160 Billion (2022; includes 2009 and 2014 baselines) | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/21/2631573/0/en/US-Merchant-Processing-Fees-Top-160-Billion.html |
| mdr-proposal-2026 | Forbes India — What is MDR on UPI and why does India want to bring it back (Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026) | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.forbesindia.com/article/news/what-is-merchant-discount-rate-on-upi-and-why-does-india-want-to-bring-it-back/2996894/1 |
| storyboard-mdr-2000 | Storyboard18 — Government may permit charges on UPI payments above ₹2,000; 0.25–0.5% under consideration | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.storyboard18.com/digital/government-may-permit-charges-on-upi-payments-above-%E2%82%B92000-proposal-under-consideration-ws-l-106676.htm |
| pib-incentive-scheme | PIB — Cabinet approves incentive scheme for promotion of low-value BHIM-UPI (P2M) transactions | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2112771 |
| outlook-upi-cost | Outlook Business — MDR and UPI economics: infrastructure cost, incentive coverage, Standing Committee finding | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://www.outlookbusiness.com/industry/mdr-upi-economics-concerns-explained-why-charges-may-be-needed-tech-infra-costs-merchants-fees |
| npci-app-share-jun26 | NPCI UPI ecosystem statistics, June 2026, via Trade Brains (5 Aug 2026) — app shares and merchant-category values | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://tradebrains.in/money/phonepe-google-pay-or-paytm-indias-top-10-upi-apps-ranked-by-transaction-volume-in-june-2026-npci-data/ |
| cic-gdp-2025 | Nine years after demonetisation — currency in circulation to GDP, 2016 / FY2021 / 2025 | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://vajiramandravi.com/current-affairs/nine-years-after-demonetisation-why-cash-in-circulation-remains-high/ |
| techcrunch-rupay | TechCrunch — India’s digital payments strategy is cutting out Visa and Mastercard | T3 · Reputable press / research org / OWID | https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/09/india-rupay-upi-payment-push-is-cutting-out-visa-and-mastercard/ |

## Caveats & what this index cannot answer

- What rate, if any, will actually be notified — the bill creates a framework, not a rate.
- How "small merchant" will be defined; no turnover threshold has been published, and it determines the entire incidence.
- Current Indian card MDR ranges — not charted, no single authoritative published range was found.
- Cost of cash to Indian merchants — the missing denominator in any honest acceptance-cost comparison.
- Whether surcharging UPI to consumers would be permitted.
- Estimates and forward targets are labelled in the working dataset; never read a labelled estimate or forecast as a settled figure.
- This is an observational data index, not investment, legal, or medical advice.

## Data freshness & methodology

- **Last updated:** 2026-08-11
- **Data as of:** 2026-08
- **What changed most recently:** The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 creates the legal framework for MDR on UPI. No rate has been notified. Reported proposals centre on 0.25–0.5% on P2M above Rs 2,000 with a small-merchant exemption.

**Methodology (as seeded):**

> This index answers one question: what changes if India starts charging
> a merchant discount rate (MDR) on UPI. Every chart is chosen to isolate
> one input to that answer — how big the rail is, who it displaced, what
> the alternative rails cost, where the fee would land, and who pays for
> the rail today.
> 
> UNITS. Indian official statistics are published in crore (10^7) and
> lakh crore (10^12) and are kept in those units rather than converted at
> a floating INR/USD rate, which would produce a derived number with no
> citable basis. The one exception is the network-scale chart, where
> crore is expressed in billions — a fixed decimal conversion, not an FX
> conversion. Cross-currency value comparisons are made in prose only.
> 
> UPI ANNUAL SERIES. FY2016-17 and FY2025-26 are from the PIB decade
> release; FY2021-22 to FY2025-26 are from the Ministry of Finance Lok
> Sabha written reply of 20 July 2026. FY2017-18 to FY2020-21 are NOT in
> either government tabulation and are carried from a secondary academic
> restatement of the same NPCI monthly series. Those four points are the
> weakest on the page and are marked as such here rather than presented
> as equivalent to the parliamentary figures.
> 
> CAVEAT — VOLUME VS VALUE. UPI volume grew ~12,000x and value ~4,000x
> over the decade. Any comparison of UPI against Visa or Mastercard must
> state which of the two it is using. UPI leads on transaction count and
> trails badly on value: UPI is 85% of India’s digital payment VOLUME but
> about 9% of its VALUE. Headlines that call UPI "bigger than Visa" are
> true on count and false on value.
> 
> CAVEAT — INSTRUMENT SHIFT. The CY2019 vs CY2024 comparison mixes an
> RBI card series with an RBI/IBEF UPI series. Both are RBI Payment
> Systems Report derivatives on the same calendar-year basis, so the
> comparison holds, but they are not a single published table.
> 
> CAVEAT — US FEE SERIES. The Nilson merchant-fee series has a gap
> between 2014 and 2022; the intervening annual figures are not in the
> cited releases and are OMITTED rather than interpolated. Read the chart
> as dated observations, not a continuous curve. The fee figure is total
> merchant processing cost (interchange + network + acquirer), which is a
> larger number than interchange alone.
> 
> CAVEAT — COST PER SALE. The 2.36% US rate and the 0.25–0.5% proposed
> Indian rate are not like-for-like: the US figure is a realised average
> across an entire year of credit transactions, the Indian figure is a
> proposed headline rate on a subset of transactions above ₹2,000. The
> chart is a scale comparison, not a rate equivalence.
> 
> CAVEAT — APP SHARES. The June 2026 NPCI app percentages are internally
> consistent; the per-app transaction counts published alongside them in
> the same source do not reconcile to the stated monthly total, so only
> the percentages are seeded. The ten listed apps sum to about 95.7%; the
> residual belongs to apps not individually disclosed and is OMITTED
> rather than shown as a synthetic "Other" slice.
> 
> CAVEAT — MDR PROPOSAL STATUS. As of August 2026 the Taxation and Other
> Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 creates the LEGAL FRAMEWORK to permit MDR;
> it does not itself impose one. The ₹2,000 threshold and the 0.25–0.5%
> band are reported proposals under consideration, not notified rates.
> Person-to-person transfers are not in scope of any published proposal.
> 
> CAVEAT — CASH. Currency-to-GDP is a ratio, and it fell partly because
> nominal GDP grew, not only because cash use fell. Currency with the
> public more than doubled in absolute terms over the same period. Do not
> read the declining line as cash disappearing.
> 
> Compiled and verified 2026-08-11.

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_Free tier. The full row-level dataset and per-source detail live on the live page and in the working file. Canonical: <https://deepstoryresearch.com/data/upi-vs-cards>. Deepstory Research · https://deepstoryresearch.com_