Domestic Digital Transactions Through UPI Top Record 2.2 Billion In November

Domestic digital transactions in India increased by 6.7 per cent last month to touch 2.2 billion, making it the second consecutive month when such transactions topped two billion.

National Payments Corporation of India data showed that these digital transactions, through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), almost doubled from 1.21 billion witnessed in the same period a year ago.

The value of the transactions in November was Rs 390 crore compared with Rs 386 crore in October. A feature of the rise in digital transactions was that 200 banks have gone live on UPI compared with 189 in October.

With festivals and arrivals of the Kharif crop, rural India helped digital transactions clock two billion in October.

The novel Coronavirus pandemic has also spurred a rise in digital transactions since these ensure contactless payments.

Going by current trends, daily digital transactions will likely hit one billion by early 2023 as they are witnessing a 10-fold growth. Other factors such as allowing new platforms such as WhatsApp to facilitate payments will now help the growth of digital transactions.

With fears and concerns over digital payments being allayed, there is growing acceptance of it now.

The two-billion mark in transactions has been achieved within four years of the launch of UPI, India’s own domestic payments platform. Also, the transactions have doubled in a year after having hit one billion in October last year.

UPI, which enables users to send money from their account to any account without entering bank details through email, or by scanning a QR code, was launched just ahead of the demonetisation excercise in November 2016.

Digital transactions through UPI have been rising every month barring April-May this year when the government announced a lockdown to tackle the spread of Coronavirus.