According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI), the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), the flagship payments portal of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), reached a new high in the month of September, with the number of transactions exceeding the 1.8 billion mark as of September 29 and the value of transactions touching the Rs 3.29 trillion mark.
In the offline and online parts, the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has resulted in major UPI adoption. People are shunning cash and embracing UPI in the offline market. UPI adaptation, in particular at the level of the merchant, has been significant. But, for low ticket size transactions, the UPI is essentially UPI and the average ticket size on the UPI is not more than Rs 200-300.
UPI clocked 1.61 billion transactions last month. The transactions were worth Rs 2,98 trillion in terms of volume. UPI transactions will pick up more throughout the festive season, which is around the corner, experts claim. UPI will thus hit 2 billion transactions per month by December and 2.15 billion transactions per month by March 2021.
Digital transactions have continued to increase their share, despite the de-growing economy. Experts say they see transactions changing to UPI and other digital payment channels from the card market. E-commerce platforms, especially UPI, are also making a huge contribution to driving up digital payment transactions.
UPI has been rising in the P2P and person-to-merchant segments, according to industry insiders. While, in terms of numbers, UPI has grown very quickly, the transaction per UPI value is still very low. In the higher value category, where the purchase payment value is larger, credit cards are still holding up.
Digital payment transactions have recovered from the Covid-19 shock and, despite the major contraction in the Indian economy due to the lockdown imposed in the initial months to curb the spread of the virus, have reached pre-covid levels. As of September 29, the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) clocked a transaction count of 268.49 million worth Rs 2.37 trillion. A transaction count of 22.45 million worth Rs 3,783.02 crore was clocked by the Bharat Bill Payment System.
The Covid-19 pandemic has done more to digitise payments in India than demonetisation has accomplished, according to experts, and the digital future is here to stay. Consumers are gradually embracing digital payment systems because they could contract the virus over concerns of cash use. The most promising thing that the pandemic has brought about is the adoption of digital payments in offline mode as customers in grocery stores and other places where cash dominated the roost are gradually moving to pay through digital payment methods.
