UPI-based transactions touch new height, transactions value grow by 26%

The UPI-based (Unified Payment Interface) transactions have been growing continuously, reaching new heights every month.

In March, the volume of UPI-based transactions grew to 178.05 million, clocking a whopping value of Rs 24,172.6 crore. Besides, the number of banks live on UPI app also reached to 91. These figures are the highest so far since the launch of UPI in August 2016.

However, the volume seems to have far slowed down as it witnessed a growth of mere 4 per cent while the growth in transactional value was far higher with 26.38 per cent growth in March.

UPI-based payments recorded 171.40 million transactions in February. The transactions were 151.83 million in the month of January, which was a mere 4.2 per cent growth. Whereas in the preceding month of December, the transactions witnessed a staggering 38 per cent growth.

As far as transaction value is concerned, February month saw a 22 per cent growth. The transacted value grew from Rs 15,571 crore in January to Rs 19,126 crore in February.

The government-owned BHIM, a UPI-based payment app, also witnessed an increase in transactional volume to 11.95 million and completed a transactional value of Rs 4,839.65 crore in March alone.

Meanwhile, BHIM UPI transactions touched approximately 913 million in volume and close to Rs 1 trillion in value in FY18.

Besides banks and BHIM, Paytm, Flipkart’s PhonePe and global players including PayU and Google’s Tez, among others contribute a major chunk of transactions.

Recently, NPCI has given its consent to roll out WhatsApp’s Unified Payment Interface beta launch with the limited user base of 1 million and low per transaction limit. For payment integration, WhatsApp has already partnered with banks including State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank.