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India’s digital payment ecosystem continues its upward trajectory, with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) latest data showing a 10.7 per cent year-on-year increase in the Digital Payments Index (DPI) as of March 2025. The index, which measures the extent of digital payment adoption across the country, climbed to 493.22 in March, up from 465.33 in September 2024.

“The increase in the RBI-Digital Payments Index (DPI) index was driven by significant growth in parameters viz. payment infrastructure – supply-side factors and payment performance across the country over the period,” the RBI said in its latest statement.

What Drives The DPI?

The Digital Payments Index (DPI) is a composite metric that monitors the expansion of digital payments across five key parameters. These include Payment Enablers, which account for 25 per cent of the index; Demand-side Infrastructure, contributing 10 per cent; Supply-side Infrastructure at 15 per cent; Payment Performance, which holds the highest weight at 45 per cent; and Consumer Centricity, comprising 5 per cent of the overall index.

These factors consider everything from the number of ATMs, POS terminals, QR codes, and bank branches offering digital services, to the volume and value of digital transactions across channels such as UPI, NEFT, IMPS, RTGS, and internet banking.

Digital Payments Continue To Dominate

The RBI has been releasing the DPI biannually, in March and September, since its inception. The index uses March 2018 as the base period, with a score of 100. In just seven years, the index has grown nearly fivefold, underlining how digital payments have permeated every layer of the Indian economy.

Earlier data had recorded a 13.3 per cent jump in DPI between March 2023 and March 2024, with the score reaching 445.50 at the end of that period.

UPI Leads India’s Digital Charge

The latest figures arrive amid soaring usage of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which continues to dominate India’s digital payment space. In June alone, UPI processed an astonishing 18.39 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 24.03 lakh crore. UPI currently handles approximately 85 per cent of all digital transactions in India and accounts for nearly 50 per cent of global real-time digital payments.

As India cements its status as a global leader in fintech innovation and real-time payment infrastructure, the consistent rise in the RBI’s DPI underscores both the depth and breadth of the digital financial revolution underway.