Exploring Cross-border Usage of Cards and Wallets in India: Insights Gleaned from 18 Months of Data Analysis
India's digital payments system has seen significant development in recent years, with the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) playing a central role. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been publishing data on cross-border payments from India for the past 18 months, providing a comprehensive resource for understanding the dynamics of these transactions.
The dataset includes transactions made using credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) such as digital wallets. It offers insights into the use of these payment instruments, revealing robust growth and deeper digital adoption driven largely by improvements in payment infrastructure and performance.
One of the key trends in the data is the rapid growth of UPI transactions. UPI, launched in 2016, covers both peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant transactions and is supported by a wide range of cards and digital wallets. The growth of UPI has significantly impacted the increase in digital payments usage across different instrument types.
The dataset also shows a steady increase in the usage of various payment instruments, although specific breakout data by instrument type (credit card, debit card, PPI) is not detailed. However, the overall growth of the digital payments ecosystem inherently includes these instruments, with PPIs such as digital wallets and prepaid cards gaining traction due to convenience and expanding acceptance, including for cross-border usage.
While the dataset does not provide explicit details on cross-border payments usage of these instruments, broader comments on digital payments expansion and government initiatives imply growing facilitation of cross-border digital transactions leveraging these payment instruments in line with financial inclusion and digital economy goals.
The RBI's India Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) surged sharply, reflecting more than a fourfold increase in digital payment activity across the country from March 2018 to March 2025. The index tracks five parameters — payment enablers, payment infrastructure demand, supply, payment performance, and consumer centricity — illustrating that growth is balanced across technological infrastructure, usage performance, and consumer adoption, supporting all payment instruments including digital wallets, prepaid cards, credit, and debit cards.
The dataset is a valuable tool for tracking the evolution of cross-border payments in India. It provides a detailed analysis of the use of payment instruments in cross-border payments and is a monthly publication since November 2022. The average transaction values for India-originating cross-border payments and the number of these transactions are also outlined in the dataset. The dataset does not include advertisements about cross-border payments.
In summary, the RBI data reveals a strong upward trend in digital payment adoption in India, supported by growing infrastructure and performance enhancements, with credit/debit cards and prepaid payment instruments like digital wallets playing integral roles. There is a continued shift towards digital payment systems for both domestic and increasing cross-border payment use, underpinned by initiatives that broaden accessibility and acceptance nationwide.
- The growth of digital payments in India, driven by advances in payment infrastructure and performance, has led to a surge in the use of credit/debit cards and prepaid payment instruments like digital wallets for both domestic and cross-border transactions.
- The RBI's India Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) showcases a balanced growth in various parameters, suggesting that the expansion of digital payment systems is underpinned by technological advancements, transaction performance, and consumer adoption, thereby facilitating cross-border digital transactions.
