The 2026 Payments Data Report: UPI, Checkout & Cross-Border in One Place
A compiled data summary covering UPI's dominance in India, checkout/cart-abandonment benchmarks, and cross-border payments market sizing — with sources for every figure.
A compiled summary of the sourced data behind our recent coverage — pulled together in one place for reference.
UPI & digital payments (India)
- UPI processed 23.2 billion transactions worth ₹29.9 trillion (≈$312.21B) in May 2026 — a monthly record. (Source: NPCI)
- UPI's share of India's retail digital payment volume rose from 81% (FY2024-25) to ~85% (FY2025-26). (Source: RBI / NPCI)
- India accounts for roughly 49% of global real-time payment transaction volume — more than three times Brazil's Pix (~14%). (Source: CoinLaw)
- RBI's Digital Payments Index rose from 493.22 (March 2025) to 516.76 (September 2025). (Source: Statista)
Checkout & conversion
- The global average cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, based on an aggregate of 50 studies. (Source: SellersCommerce / Baymard Institute)
- Mobile cart abandonment (80.02%) runs meaningfully higher than desktop (66.41%). (Source: SellersCommerce)
- 48% of abandonments are attributed to excess shipping fees/taxes revealed at checkout — the single most-cited reason. (Source: Baymard Institute)
Cross-border payments
- The global cross-border payments market is estimated at $238.14 billion in 2026, projected to grow at a 7.16% CAGR through 2031. (Source: Mordor Intelligence)
- Market-size estimates vary meaningfully by research firm (roughly $195B–$397B for 2026), largely due to differing scope (card-based ecommerce only vs. including B2B wire/correspondent banking).
Why this matters
Every figure above traces back to a named source rather than an internal estimate — useful as a reference point if you're building a business case, a board deck, or just sanity-checking a claim you've seen elsewhere. We'll update this report as fresher data becomes available.