2020 was the year of contactless payments, and thus, it is not surprise that India’s own online payments technology-UPI flourished in the year. Bhim Unified Payment Interface or UPI, which is seen as one of the most successful endeavors of Digital India apart from Aadhar, was one of the biggest modes of digital payment in the year, and according to NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant , the transaction value of UPI payments has jumped by 105% from Dec 2019 to Dec 2020.
In fact, in the month of January alone, UPI saw 2.3 billion transactions which were worth Rs.4.2 trillion, he said.
Phenomenal ! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth ₹ 4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPIs transaction value jumped 76.5 % while transaction value jumped nearly 100%. Took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month. Next billion came in less than a year.
— Amitabh Kant (@amitabhk87) February 3, 2021
The Indian technology, which merges several banking features and multiple bank accounts into a single application saw an unprecedented use during the coronavirus lockdown, with people avoiding going to banks and preferring cashless transactions.
UPI did see a road bump in April, when the transaction value dipped below the billion mark, but it has continued to flourish and is now one of the biggest payment systems, and has become a driving force to proliferate digital payments in India.
With these new developments and growth, there is talk among the ministry to launch the tech in other developing countries as well.
Multiple platfotrms, including Google Pay, PhonePe, and the recently launched WhatsApp Pay have adopted the payments technology, and are witnessing massive growth in their user base. In fact, to maintain a level playing field, NPCI has issued new guidelines, dictating that not platform can have a market share of more than 30% by the end of 2021.
Nonetheless, the technology is on a rise, and various reports have estimated that UPI payments will increase by two times by 2022.
