The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is India’s preeminent digital payments system. In July 2026 alone, it processed 2,366 crore transactions — or around 7,600 transactions per second — in total worth nearly ₹30 lakh crore. Across the 2025-26 financial year, UPI handled 24,160 crore transactions worth ₹314 lakh crore, accounting for 85% of the country’s digital payment transactions by volume. According to the International Monetary Fund, UPI also accounted for a stunning 49% of all real-time payments worldwide in 2025.

Say Selvi has an account in Violin Bank and Shankar has an account in Flute Bank. Selvi wants to send Shankar ₹100 via UPI. First, Selvi tells her UPI app — which could be Google Pay, PhonePe, etc. — whom she wants to pay. Obviously the app will not understand who ‘Shankar’ is. Instead, she will have to tell the app in a language the app understands.