UPI gets closer to IMPS in value terms
New Delhi, March 1: The government has collected Rs 1.05 lakh crore as GST revenue in February, up 8 per cent over the same month last year.
The collection from goods and services tax in February was, however, lower than the Rs
1.10 lakh crore collected in January 2020.
"The gross GST revenue collected in the month of February, 2020 is Rs 1,05,366 crore of which CGST is Rs 20,569 crore, SGST is Rs 27,348 crore, IGST is Rs 48,503 crore and cess is Rs
8,947 crore," the finance ministry said in a statement.
The number of GSTR
3B returns filed for January up to February
29 stood at 83 lakh— same as last month.
The government has settled Rs 22,586 crore to CGST and Rs 16,553 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.
"The total revenue earned by Central government and the state governments after regular settlement in the month of February, 2020 is Rs 43,155 crore for CGST and Rs 43,901 crore for the SGST," the statement added.
The GST revenues in February from domestic transactions has shown a growth of 12 per cent over the same month last year.
The government, meanwhile, is planning to launch lottery offer under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 by conducting lucky draws every month for invoices of all business to customer
(B2C) transactions. The lottery scheme is being envisaged by the revenue department to encourage customers to take bills for every purchase, which will in turn help the government in curbing GST evasion.
Under the scheme, the revenue department will conduct monthly lucky draws which will have one bumper prize, while there would be second and third prizes state wise, an official of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said. “The lottery scheme is planned to be launchedon April
1,” he said.
Having clocked more than 200 per cent growth in transaction value, realtime payment system UPI got closer to IMPS, which is the most preferred digital payment mode in value terms. In volume terms, UPI is already the top payment mode and it more than doubled its transactions in 2019.
United payments interface (UPI) recorded a substantial transaction volume of 10.8 billion in 2019, an year-on-year (YoY) increase of 188 per cent. In terms of value, UPI facilitated transactions worth Rs 18.36 lakh crore, up 214 per cent from 2018, as per data from
Worldline India.
Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) too continued its strong growth in
2019. It recorded 55 per cent YoY increase by facilitating about 2.3 billion transactions in volume, but clocked Rs 21.8 lakh crore in terms of value, up 41 per cent from 2018.
UPI, now growing faster than IMPS in value terms, is expected to beat IMPS in value terms as well in
2020. UPI added nine banks to its ecosystem in
2019, bringing the total number of banks providing UPI services to 143. On the other hand, IMPS onboarded 165 banks under its ecosystem, bringing the total number of banks providing IMPS services to 559 banks, as of end2019.
The key factors that powered UPI’s transactions growth in 2019 were adoption of UPI 2.0 features by banks, enabling payments for IPO applications, facilitating foreign inward remittance service, supporting donations for relief programmes and numerous cashbacks and discounts offered by banks and non-bank players.
Further, in order to enhance UPI’s adoption among masses, the Nation-al Payments Corporation of India has advised that the regional rural banks (RRBs) can also participate in UPI as acquirers.
However, UPI’s average ticket size (ATS) remained around Rs 1,600 in 2019, which indicates consumer preferance for making small ticket size transactions via UPI.
According to Worldline, IMPS and UPI volumes, as compared to the lower volumes of debit and credit cards, highlight the fact that digital payment products are being primarily used for person-to-person
(P2P) transactions than person-to-merchants
(P2M) transactions.