UPI Maintains $100 Bn+ Transaction Value In November 2021

SUMMARY

With a dip of 0.71% in the number of month-on-month transactions, UPI recorded 418 Cr transactions worth INR 7.68 Lakh Cr (approx $102.4 Bn) in November

Due to the festive season, October recorded 15.3% MoM value growth, while in November, NPCI has posted a fall of 0.39%

As the market continues to grow almost 100% year-on-year, UPI leaders PhonePe and Google Pay need to downsize their market shares

Last month, UPI transactions had crossed the $100 Bn value mark for the first time. With 418 Cr transactions worth INR 7.68 Lakh Cr (approx $102.4 Bn) in November, UPI has maintained the milestone, with a tepid fall from October 2021.

According to NPCI data, October 2021 had recorded 421 Cr transactions worth INR 7.71 Lakh Cr (approx $103 Bn), a rise of 15.3% month-on-month (MoM), a major of which could be attributed to the festive season. Meanwhile, in November, NPCI posted a fall of 0.39% in UPI value and 0.71% in transaction count.

	October	November	Change
Transaction Count	421 Cr	418 Cr	– 0.71%
Transaction value	INR 7.71 Lakh Cr (approx $103 Bn)	INR 7.68 Lakh Cr (approx $102.4 Bn)	– 0.39%

In October, PhonePe led the UPI numbers with 193 Cr transactions worth INR 3.65 Lakh Cr. Google Pay maintained its second lead with 145 Cr transactions worth INR 2.87 Lakh Cr. Next in line were Paytm (632 Mn transactions worth INR 80,508 Cr); Amazon Pay (68.82 Mn transactions worth INR 6,286 Cr) and WhatsApp Pay (2.6 Mn transactions worth INR 104 Cr).

The contactless digital payments such as mobile wallets and UPI continue to gain market momentum even after the conditions brought by the Covid-19 pandemic begin to subside. Compared to the same time period in 2021, UPI transactions were at a mere 221 Cr worth INR 3.90 Lakh Cr.

The digital payments market is expected to grow to INR 7,092 Tn in India by 2025. Further, the current 160 Mn unique mobile payment users are likely to multiply by 5 times to reach nearly 800 Mn by 2025.

As The Market Grows, Market Leaders Need To Grow Negatively

As a year to NPCI’s guideline limiting third-party app providers (TPAP) at 30% of the total volume of transactions nears its end, PhonePe and Google Pay seem to be struggling to cap their limits. Flipkart-backed PhonePe and Google’s Google Pay currently own 47% and 34% of the UPI payments market share but they have been allowed until December 2023 to bring it below the 30% threshold set by the NPCI.

The move is aimed at avoiding the formation of an oligopoly while encouraging competition. This is the same reason why WhatsApp has been disallowed from leveraging its payments platform to over 500 Mn users in the country. In fact, its initial rollout was restricted to 20 Mn users. But in relief of the Meta-owned WhatsApp Pay, NPCI has recently allowed it to double the number of users on its payment platform in India to 40 Mn people.