Learning who’s left out of the UPI ecosystem

This is the heaviest satellite launched from Indian soil with our own launcher... It gives us confidence to take care of the Gaganyaan mission

- Khushi Baldota and Anushri Pundit are with Artha Global. The views expressed are personal

As India’s payments digital public infrastructure approaches its tenth anniversary, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) continues to stand out for its scale and adoption. In November alone, it processed over 20 billion transactions. As estimated by experts, UPI has 491 million unique users and serves close to half of India’s total addressable population. Its role in reshaping everyday transactions is evident. Yet, important questions remain: Who are the millions still not using UPI, and why? And is there public data that can point us toward the answers?

These questions matter because the next phase of UPI’s growth depends on a deeper focus on inclusion and innovation. Reaching those who remain outside it needs a clearer picture of who the nonusers are, where they are concentrated, and what prevents them from joining. However, the public data currently available does not allow for such analysis. At present, information on UPI largely covers aggregate transaction volumes, values, and technical performance indicators such as uptime. While these metrics capture system efficiency, they offer little insight into the distribution of adoption across geographies, income groups, or demographic segments. It is thus difficult to design interventions that address the specific reasons for non-use.