UPI Transactions Jump 5% MoM In May, Volume Touches INR 20.45 Lakh Cr Mark

The transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) rose 5% month-on-month (MoM) to 14.04 Bn in May from 13.30 Bn in the previous month.

As per the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) data, the transaction volume in May stood at INR 20.45 Lakh Cr, up 4.1% from April’s 19.64 Lakh Cr. 

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the transaction count surged 49%, while transaction volume zoomed 37%.

It is pertinent to mention that the total transactions processed by UPI surpassed 100 Bn last year. 

Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India’s (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. 

Total transactions processed by UPI stood at 117.6 Bn in 2023, up 60% year-on-year (YoY) from 74 Bn transactions in 2022. Meanwhile, the transaction volume rose over 40% YoY to INR 182.84 Lakh Cr during the period.

Amid the staggering growth of UPI payments service in the country, the NPCI and the central government have taken several measures to further strengthen India on the payments map.

Last year, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that India signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with some 30 countries to expand UPI globally.

Countries such as Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bhutan, Nepal, the UAE and Canada have already adopted India’s UPI payment model to some extent.

Last month, NPCI’s international arm, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), also signed an agreement with the Bank of Namibia to develop a UPI-like digital payments system for the African nation.

Moreover, the NPCI has also launched several new features such as UPI Lite, which supports low-value transactions; UPI Lite X, which supports offline transactions; and Hello! UPI, which lets users make payments with their voice.

The NPCI is also said to be exploring an interchange fee structure lower than that for a credit card transaction. These charges could be anywhere between 1% and 1.2% per transaction. 

Meanwhile, the payments regulator is considering revising its decision to impose a 30% market share cap on payment players providing UPI services by the end of 2024.