Travel, IPL, Drive UPI Transactions To Record High In May At Rs 29.9 Lakh Crore

Mumbai: Transactions on India’s digital payments network UPI rose to an all time high of 2320 crore in May 2026 driven by summer travel and Indian Premier League (IPL) related spending.

According to the data released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI processed 2320 crore transactions worth Rs 29.90 lakh crore in May 2026, growing 24 per cent in volume and 19 per cent in value.

The April figures had stood at 2235 crore transactions valued at Rs 29.03 lakh crore.

Akash Sinha Co-founder & CEO, Cashfree Payments said, “May's numbers reflect strong organic demand. Summer travel, IPL 2026, and seasonal consumption spending drove 23.20 billion transactions worth ₹29.90 lakh crore, which is a healthy month-on-month recovery and a continuation of UPI's steady upward trajectory.”

Notably, the RBI's Payments Systems Report released recently showed that the UPI's average ticket size has declined from ₹1,848 in 2021 to ₹1,313 in 2025. This was because high-value transactions are increasingly being handled by credit cards, whose transaction value has grown from ₹8.9 lakh crore in 2021 to ₹23.2 lakh crore in 2025.

According to Sinha, UPI has become the default rails for India's everyday economy which include payments to local merchants, transit, and quick commerce and the next growth frontier will be additive to all of this.

Credit-on-UPI is still in early innings and represents a significant new volume pool. Cross-border UPI is live in over eight countries (Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the UAE) and expanding bringing a whole new transaction category onto the rails, said Sinha.