Data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) reveals that the Centre’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and IMPS has touched record highs in terms of both volumes as well as the number of transactions, while payments on BHIM has also leaped to a 10-month high.
Transactions made through UPI have passed over a remarkable 900 million mark in August, this resulted due to an increase in merchant adoption of the payment channel and better smartphone penetration hike in certain states across the nation.
Out of the 918 million UPI transactions carried out in August, Flipkart-owned PhonePe recorded the highest number at 342 million followed by Google Pay at 320 million. Paytm stood third at 157 million. WhatsApp will joining the digital payments bandwagon soon.
Data released from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) revealed that in August, a total of 918 million transactions ( worth Rs 1.54 lakh crore ) were executed on the interoperable digital payments platform ;this followed an 11.6% surge in volumes and 5.5% in value from the month of July, when 822 million transactions worth Rs 1.46 lakh crore were processed .
Praveena Rao , COO, NPCI stated, “The numbers have been driven by the consistent core growth in the last few months. We have seen good adoption across the board in both large and small cities.”
In terms of worth, UPI transactions had fallen for two straight months in June and July this year. However it had hit an all-time high at 91.83 crore in August which was at ₹1.54-lakh crore, a substantial increase from ₹1.46-lakh crore in July.
Expectations have reached a whooping billion transactions in the festive season, September to December. With 21 banks live on the platform, the UPI was introduced in 2016, prior to demonetisation.
Currently over 120 banks have gone live on the UPI channel, thereby allowing real time interoperable transactions between consumers and merchants. At a later date, various states on grounds of different factors such as internet and smartphone penetration, wealth generation and literacy rates have seen different margins of ratification.
To promote digital transactions, the government is providing incentives and cashbacks to merchants and consumers. Database on digital payments Digidhan reveals that Andhra Pradesh aces the spot for adoption of the e-payment mode, with 17 transactions per person since April 2019, followed by Haryana with a rate of 9 in this period. Whereas Chhattisgarh lacks behind at around 0.08 transactions per person.
The bottom five states were Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir – all with less than 1 transaction per person. For Maharashtra, 3.6 transactions were made per person while for Karnataka it was 4.9. Meanwhile, Delhi saw 5.4 transactions per person being made in this period.
“The adoption rates are closely related to smartphone penetration and literacy. States such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, with high infrastructure investments, have seen a lot of people making payments digitally,” said Harshil Mathur, CEO, Razorpay, a leading payment gateway.
