Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Sunday praised UPI for becoming the world's top real-time payment system. Calling it a "phenomenal" achievement, he said the digital platform has transformed lives and showcased India's rapid progress in just nine years. "UPI surpasses Visa to become the world's leading real-time payment system, processing over 650 million transactions daily. Achieving this in just 9 years highlights its unmatched scale and momentum," he wrote on X. "From India to the world, UPI is leading the digital payment revolution."

A recent Fintech Note by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), titled “Growing Retail Digital Payments: The Value of Interoperability”, positions India as the world leader in real-time payments. The report highlights a significant shift from traditional instruments like debit and credit cards towards interoperable systems such as UPI. It notes that in districts with greater interoperability, digital payments tend to rise relative to cash usage, as measured by declining ATM withdrawals.