UPI Digital Payments Cross $20 Bn But Transactions Fall

The digital payments industry in India continues to cross its growth targets month-by-month. In April 2019, the government-owned Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has recorded 781.79 Mn transactions with a total worth $20.42 Bn (INR 1,42,034.39 Cr).

According to the data released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), April transactions count for 30 days with a daily average transaction of 26.06 Mn.

Under NPCI here are other key performance metrics for April 2019:

• Inter-bank electronic funds transfer system (IMPS) amounted to $24.3 Bn (INR 1,69,197.08 Cr) for 185.04 Mn transactions. April transaction count for 30 days with a daily average transaction of 6.17 Mn.
• AePS (Aadhar-enabled Point of Sale) recorded 219.42 Mn transactions worth $1.3 Bn (INR 9351.09 Cr)
• National Electronic Toll Collection(NETC) reached 25.98  Mn transactions worth $84.2 Mn (INR 585.38 Cr)

UPI: The Growth Story

UPI was launched by the NPCI in 2016 to allow users to transfer money immediately using a mobile. NPCI is an umbrella organisation setup by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks Association (IBA) for all retail payments in India.

UPI also allows a peer-to-peer money collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. Since its inception, UPI has received strong support from the government.

The NPCI launched Version 2.0 of UPI in July 2018, which included features such as collect payment requests generation along with invoice attachment, a one-time mandate with block functionality and others.

Digital Payments Growth In India

According to NITI Aayog’s ”Digital Payments (2018 edition)”, India’s digital payments industry is estimated to grow to $1 Tn by 2023. It also suggested that the value of digital payments will likely jump from the current 10% to over 25% by 2023.

Several players have been leveraging the ease of UPI across B2C, B2B transactions. Here are some recent happenings:

• Google Pay reached $81 Bn transactions in March 2019 at an annualised run rate level
• As of January, it was reported that Paytm had recorded 221 Mn transactions
• Amazon Pay has marked its entry in the Indian peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction market with @apl handles
• Flipkart’s digital payment entity PhonePe claims to have 150 Mn users having processed 270 Mn transactions

The Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das has recently said that the central bank will come up with a regulatory framework of customer-protection measures tailor-made for digital transactions. In the buzzing online payments space, the government support continues to bear fruit with increasing traction.