Digital payments surge in H1FY26, RBI index climbs to 516.76

India’s digital payments ecosystem registered further improvement in the first half of FY26, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reporting a steady rise in its Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI). The upward movement reflects continued expansion and deepening of digital transactions across the country.

According to an RBI statement issued on Thursday, the composite RBI-DPI for September 2025 stood at 516.76, marking a significant increase from 465.33 in September 2024 and 493.22 in March 2025. The index, introduced in January 2021 with March 2018 as the base year, measures the extent of digitisation of payments nationwide.

The central bank attributed the latest rise primarily to robust growth in key parameters such as payment performance and payment enablers. 

These include payment enablers (25 per cent weight), payment infrastructure – demand-side factors (10 per cent), payment infrastructure – supply-side factors (15 per cent), payment performance (45 per cent), and consumer centricity (5 per cent).