Mumbai, Feb 16 || Currency in circulation (CiC) in India reached an all‑time high of about Rs 40 lakh crore by January 2026 end, with year‑on‑year growth accelerating to 11.1 per cent from 5.3 per cent last year, a report said on Monday.
The report from SBI Research said on an incremental basis (YTD), the currency with public (CWP), accounting for 97.6 per cent of the circulated currency, reached an all time high of around Rs 39 lakh crore. Meanwhile, CiC surged Rs 2.76 lakh crore or 3.11 times in the same period.
At current trends, currency with the public is likely to surpass the post‑pandemic FY21 incremental growth of Rs 4.6 lakh crore, the report further said.
The report highlighted that "UPI transactions value is much higher than the currency circulation in India". One‑month UPI transaction value stood at about Rs 28 lakh crore, roughly 70 per cent of the economy’s total currency stock, underscoring that digital payments volumes remain large relative to cash.
The cash‑to‑GDP ratio has declined to 11 per cent in FY26 from 14.4 per cent in FY21.