Maintaining its record performance, the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) reported a spike of 16% transaction volume and an 11% hike in transaction value in July 2021. Recently, PM Modi launched e-RUPI as well, which is based on the UPI framework. It is a cashless and contactless one-time voucher for digital payments.
All-time high transaction value
In July 2021, NPCI recorded 3.24 billion transactions. It is an increase of 15.7% month on month. It recorded transactions worth Rs. 6.06 Lakh Cr, a 10.8% increase month on month.
The previous best performance was recorded in June 2021. It crossed 2.8 Billion transactions worth Rs 5.47 Lakh Cr. Due to the pandemic, many people are shifting towards an online mode of payment solutions for in-store transactions. However, when the first nationwide lockdown was imposed in April 2020, UPI fell below the 1 billion mark and recorded 990 million transactions.
In May 2020, re-opening started and UPI again witnessed a record high of 2 billion transactions in October 2020. In March 2021, UPI had reported its best-ever figures with 2.73 billion transactions worth Rs. 5.04 Lakh Cr.
Increase in Digital Payments
An increase in UPI transactions is just one indicator of the shift towards digital payments. The RBI’s Digital Payments Index (DPI) in March 2021 rose to 270.59 as compared to 207.84 in March 2020. The RBI announced the construction of the composite RBI-DPI with March 2018 as the base period to assess the extent of digitization of payments in the country.
The success of UPI is unparalleled, and Bhutan has become the first foreign country to adopt the payment framework. NPCI has also introduced UPI help to address grievances.
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