UPI LOGS 3.55 BILLION TRANSACTIONS IN AUG

The National Payments Corporation of India’s flagship payment platform UPI has logged over 3 billion transactions for the 2nd consecutive month in August, signalling wider digital payment adoption. In August, UPI logged 3.55 billion transactions, which is an all-time high in terms of the volume of transactions the payment platform has recorded since its launch.

The National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI'S) flagship payment platform Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has logged more than 3 billion transactions for the second consecutive month in a row in August, signalling wider digital payment adoption.

In August, UPI logged 3.55 billion transactions, which is an all-time high in terms of the volume of transactions the payment platform has recorded since its launch. In value terms, UPI saw transactions worth ~6.39 trillion in August, which is again a record high. On a month-onbasis (MOM), UPI’S volume of transactions was up 9.5 per cent in August, and the value of transactions up 5.4 per cent.

In July, UPI processed 3.24 billion transactions, up 15.7 per cent from June, when it processed 2.8 billion transactions. In value terms, the platform processed transactions worth ~6.06 trillion in July, up 10.76 per cent from June.

Launched in 2016, UPI has seen tremendous adoption, further accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak. It crossed 1 billion transactions for the first time in October 2019. The next 1 billion transactions came in under a year. In October 2020, UPI processed more than 2 billion transactions for the first time. Further, the journey from 2 billion transactions a month to 3 billion was traversed in 10 months, indicating the incredible popularity of UPI as a platform for retail digital payments among consumers.

The payment platform saw a minor dip in April and May in step with the dip in economic activity due to the second wave of the pandemic, but recovered as the economy unlocked. UPI made up for 10 per cent of the overall retail payments in 2020-21 (excluding real-time gross settlement), growing at a compound annual growth rate of 400 per cent between 2016-17 and 2020-21. Until a few years ago, UPI’S share in the overall retail payments was only 2 per cent. UPI’S incredible growth can be attributed to interoperability, open-source platform, ease of use, and zero merchant discount rates.