Here’s how UPI in India reached +4bn in transactions this year

By Puja Sharma

Upon its launch in October 2019, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed $1 billion transactions and it crossed the next billion in less than a year. A new boost to the already thriving UPI transactions will be the AutoPay feature, which has seen massive adoption since the Reserve Bank of India’s new guidelines on e-mandates disrupted recurring payments through cards.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for retail payments in the country in its release reported that Unified Payments Interface (UPI) logged 4.52 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 8.26t, in February. Further, with one month remaining in the financial year, UPI has achieved the goal of over 40 billion transactions in FY22.

According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organization for retail payments in the country, the UPI, India’s flagship digital payments platform, processed 4.52 billion transactions in February totalling Rs 8.26t.

In January, the payments platform had reported 8.32t rupees worth of transactions, a record total. During February, there were fewer days, which contributed to a marginally low volume and value of transactions. Accordingly, year-on-year (YoY) UPI transactions in February were up 97% in volume terms and 94% in value terms.

UPI transactions reported a dip in May last year as a result of the second wave of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, but have experienced a phenomenal recovery in line with the economic recovery and increased adoption of digital payments since then. Thus far, it has processed a little over 40.49 billion transactions worth Rs 74.51t in FY22. As a result of the increased adoption of digital payments in the country, especially UPI, the number of transactions has nearly doubled since FY21. With one month remaining in the financial year, UPI has achieved the goal of over 40 billion transactions set by the CEO of NPCI. In CY21, UPI processed more than 38 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 71.59t.

Upon its launch in October 2019, UPI crossed 1 billion transactions. It crossed the next 1 billion in less than a year. Over 2 billion transactions were processed in October 2020. From 2 billion to 3 billion transactions per month, the payment platform travelled in 10 months, but it took only three months for it to reach 4 billion transactions per month from 3 billion.

A new boost to the already thriving UPI transactions will be the AutoPay feature, which has seen massive adoption since the Reserve Bank of India’s new guidelines on e-mandates disrupted recurring payments through cards.

Manoj Chopra, Head Innovation and Product Development at Kiya.ai, expressed his views emphasizing the reason for the growth of UPI transactions and the future roadmap of digital payments in the country. “February 2022 has been an interesting month in its payments history. The transactions nearly doubled from 229.2cr (February 2021) to 452.74cr (February 2022) despite being at such a high base. The growth will accelerate further through NPCI’s planned initiatives like UPI Lite, which will allow non-smartphone consumers in distant places with little or no internet access to start making digital payments. While the urban population has been the primary user of its service, the rural population is projected to drive the next wave of growth,” he said.

With the pace at which transactions are increasing and the addition of new innovative features like AutoPay, Prepaid vouchers, and UPI Lite for offline payments, the NPCI’s aim of 1 billion digital transactions per day is very much within reach.

“Accelerated UPI adoption, the need of investments towards financial literacy and customer education on how to use digital products and services will be required. In addition, the AutoPay feature is at the vanguard of India’s digital transaction boom. The milestone is being driven by the ever-increasing use cases of UPI, such as EMI payments, subscriptions, mutual fund SIPs, utility bill payments, salary payments, and so on,” Chopra added.