UPI Transactions Jump 11% MoM In March, Volume Nears INR 20 Lakh Cr Mark

The transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) rose 11% month-on-month (MoM) to 13.44 Bn in March 2024 from 12.10 Bn. On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the transaction count surged 55% from 8.7 Bn.

As per the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) data, the transaction volume in March stood at INR 19.78 Lakh Cr, up 8% from February’s INR 18.28 Lakh Cr. It also zoomed 40% from INR 14.1 Lakh Cr in the year-ago month.

Last month, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said that India accounts for nearly 46% of the world’s digital transactions. He attributed this jump to the increase in adoption of UPI. 

“The share of UPI in digital payments has reached close to 80% in 2023. At a macro level, the volume of UPI transactions increased from 43 Cr in 2017 to 11,761 Cr in 2023,” he said. 

The NPCI as well as the government have taken a number of steps to promote UPI. The NPCI continues to add new features and launch new services to further increase the adoption of UPI. It has launched innovations like UPI Lite, credit lines on UPI, UPI LITE X and Tap & Pay, Hello! UPI, and BillPay Connect, among others, over the years. 

As of now, it is eyeing the introduction of a new service to enable an interoperable payment system for net banking through NPCI Bharat Billpay (NBBL). The system will facilitate quicker settlement of funds for merchants. With banks and fintech firms planning to get onboard, the NBBL is likely to enable such transactions in April.

The NPCI has also inked agreements with multiple countries, including Nepal, France, Sri Lanka, Singapore, UAE, to take UPI global.

Meanwhile, the UPI landscape in India continues to be dominated by PhonePe and Google Pay. While the app-wise transaction numbers for March 2024 are yet to be released, the two entities commanded an over 80% share in the UPI space in 2023. 

Last month, PhonePe said its users can make digital payments in the UAE at Mashreq Bank’s NEOPAY terminals.

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