The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the popular payment platform administered by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), recorded 365 crore transactions totalling Rs 6.54 lakh crore, an all-time high in terms of volume and value.
It was also the third month in a row with more than 300 crore transactions on the platform, indicating a growing adoption of digital payments in the country after the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic broke.
The volume of UPI transactions increased by 3 percent month over month (MoM), whereas the value of transactions increased by 2.35 percent. However, both the volume and value of transactions have increased year over year, indicating a dramatic uptick in commercial digital payments in the last year or two. In August, UPI handled 355 crore transactions worth Rs 6.39 lakh crore, up from 324 crore transactions worth Rs 6.06 lakh crore in July.
Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), however, also witnessed an increase in transactions, with 38.44 crore payments totalling Rs. 3.24 lakh crore was processed in September. In August, 37.79 crore transactions worth Rs. 3.18 lakh crore were processed through IMPS.
Transactions via NETC FASTags, on the other hand, decreased to 19.36 crore in September, totalling 3,009.3 crores in value, compared to Rs. 20.12 crore in August, comprising Rs. 3,076.56 crore.
UPI transactions may surge much more in October and November thanks to the festive season. According to NPCI’s CEO Dilip Asbe, UPI transactions could surpass 40-42 billion this year, almost double compared to 22 billion last year. UPI has handled 25.73 billion transactions worth around Rs 50 lakh crore so far this calendar year.
UPI, which was launched in 2016, has gained remarkable adoption, which has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. For the very first time, it surpassed 1 billion transactions in October 2019. The subsequent billion transactions were completed in less than a year. For the first time in October 2020, UPI handled more than 2 billion transactions.
Furthermore, the jump from 2 billion to 3 billion transactions per month took only ten months, illustrating UPI’s increasing adoption as a platform for retail digital payments among consumers.
Flipkart-owned PhonePe, IPO bound Paytm, and Google Pay are the leading UPI providers in India, and whereas Facebook-owned WhatsApp Pay has arrived late to the game, it has yet to disclose significant transaction volumes.
It’s important to note that, NPCI has not yet published app-specific transaction statistics for September 2021, a review of August transactions indicates that PhonePe managed to dominate transactions, accounting for nearly half of the market at 47 percent, followed by Google Pay at 35 percent.
