The Death of Cash
Over the last decade, digital payments have entirely consumed India's payment landscape. Cheques have gone from a significant share to a rounding error.
-48%
Cheque Volume Decline
86.3%
UPI Share of Total
0.18%
Cheque Share of Total
UPI is now 86% of all digital payments
UPI's share of total digital payment volume has grown relentlessly: 46% in mid-2020, 71% by mid-2022, and 86% by mid-2025. Every other payment rail - NEFT, IMPS, cards, wallets - is growing in absolute terms but shrinking as a share.
Demonetization was the inflection point
In November 2016, India demonetized 86% of currency overnight. Cheque volumes actually spiked temporarily, but digital payments - especially NEFT and IMPS - surged and never looked back. It created the behavioral shift that UPI then capitalized on.
IMPS quietly overtook NEFT in 2021
NEFT was India's dominant electronic transfer system for over a decade. But in January 2021, IMPS surpassed NEFT in monthly volume for the first time and has stayed ahead since. The old batch-processing world is being replaced by real-time.
Cheques survived COVID - but not UPI
Cheques have declined -48% since 2015, but the drop wasn't sudden - it was a slow bleed as digital alternatives grew. What's killing cheques isn't a single event - it's the relentless, compounding growth of UPI making them irrelevant, one transaction at a time.