UPI Slows Down: Transaction Value Falls 4.77% MoM To INR 12.36 Lakh Cr In February

After two consecutive months of growth, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) witnessed a decline in transaction value as well as transaction count on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in February 2023.

According to figures from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI recorded 753 Cr transactions worth INR 12.36 Lakh Cr ($150.65 Bn) last month. The transaction count declined 6.23% from 803 Cr in January 2023, while transaction value shrunk 4.77% from INR 12.98 Lakh Cr in January.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the transaction count rose 62% from 453 Cr in February 2022, while transaction value grew 49% from INR 8.27 Lakh Cr in the year-ago period.

The decline in the key metrics of the payments network comes after it achieved record highs in January on the back of an increase in momentum towards the end of 2022.

Interestingly, UPI also recorded a small decline in February 2022. The momentary blip in February 2022 was followed by a big rise in March 2022, when UPI transaction value and transaction count grew 16.17% and 20.59% MoM, respectively.

The NPCI has not yet released the in-depth statistics for UPI transactions last month, including app-wise statistics and transaction types. 

In January, PhonePe consolidated its top position, capturing 50.1% of the UPI market share in terms of the transaction value. Google Pay and Paytm were the closest competitors to the Walmart-owned decacorn, with 34.2% and 10.8% of the market share, respectively.

During the first month of 2023, peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions accounted for 54.88% of the total transactions, while peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions made up the remaining 45.12%. 

On the other hand, P2P transactions contributed 76.83% of the total transaction value in January 2023, while P2M transactions accounted for 23.17%.

Last month, the governments of India and Singapore officially completed the UPI-PayNow linkage to allow real-time cross-border remittances. 

The UPI-PayNow linkage is a collaboration between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the payment system operators of both countries – NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) and Banking Computer Services Pte Ltd. (BCS).

India is also in talks with several other countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East to export UPI. 

The international expansion, coupled with multiple other initiatives such as UPI-credit card linkage, has seen the NPCI set an ambitious target of achieving a billion UPI transactions a day in the next five years. 

In February 2023, UPI recorded 269.1 Mn transactions per day, about 27% of what the NPCI seeks to achieve.