India, has during the covid lockdown silently developed and implemented world's largest National digital payment system called ['UPI'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface). Although, India is far from cashless, but this year the amount of money transacted through UPI crossed 1 billion USD for the first time, even though most of the transactions through UPI are low value transactions.
Now-a-days, it's really common to see your typical vegetable vendor (basically a single person establishment, selling his goods in a mobile platform with 4 wheels) display a UPI QR code for payment. Google Pay in India has integrated their systems with UPI and are among one of the biggest payment services.
> but this year the amount of money transacted through UPI crossed 1 billion USD for the first time
You're off by a few zeroes. UPI transactions totalled 1 trillion USD last year. Figures from last month can be seen on their website - nearly $135 billion for September 2022.[1]
That's right.. but the use wasn't widespread.
The demonetization exercise and in quick succession to it, the covid lockdown helped UPI up the scale, exponentially.
