UPI QR codes jumped nearly 9% YoY in Sept 2026: RBI data

India had 885.50 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) QR codes and 5.34 million Bharat QR codes deployed at the end of September 2026, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s Payment System Indicators. This is provisional data published by RBI underlines nearly 9% year-on-year jump in QR code deployment. However, it might be revised in recent months.

Key observations

UPI QR growth: As per the RBI data the September QR code count rose from 813.03 million in August while the number of UPI QR codes available in the same period last year was 709.06 million. This marks an 8.91% increase in September 2026 compared to the previous month, a substantial addition of 72.47 million QR codes. Based on Year-on-Year growth statistics it rose 14.66% from September 2025. However, this is the number of QR codes deployed by merchants and businesses, not the number of codes actually used for payments.

Bharat QR: The RBI data showed that the Bharat QR code count for September 2026 touched 5.34 million, compared with 5.33 million reported in August and 6.07 million seen in the same month last year. The year-on-year decline was 12.39%. However, figures in the RBI data do not explain the decline.

UPI QR by bank

While Yes Bank reported 638 million UPI QR codes in September this year, Axis Bank’s fugure stood at 193.71 million, according to the RBI’s bank-wise ATM/PoS/Card Statistics. Yes Bank’s figure was 72.05% of the total published in that table. However, the Payment System Indicators (PSI) count, and the bank-wise tool are taken from separate RBI tables and hence shows slight variations. For example: August’s revised bank-wise count was 813.03 million, marginally above the corresponding PSI count. But these bank-wise counts do not stand for the number of transactions handled by the codes or which UPI payments app the payer used.

More UPI payments failure reported by Banks

Additionally, NPCI’s monthly UPI data shows that more payments failed in September, as the rate of failures rose to 0.24% among the 20 largest remitter banks, up from 0.18% in August 2026. ICICI, SBI, Kotak Mahindra and Indian Overseas Bank’s UPI payments decline rate doubled over this period. However, what percentage of this were QR code-related payment failures that isn’t known.

Also Read:

• Why retailers and merchants are pushing back against UPI MDR
• Apple Pay launches in India: What if Apple applies for a UPI licence?
• PIL in Supreme Court challenges charges on UPI payments above Rs 2,000

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