BHIM claims spike in merchant transactions, sees decline in UPI traction to 3.3%

The Government-backed digital payments platform BHIM ( Bharat Interface for Money) UPI transactions has declined by 4.4 per cent in a year to 3.3 per cent. Last year the UPI transaction share of BHIM was 7.7 per cent.

In the last month, BHIM processed about 17.35 million UPI transactions worth Rs 7,981.82 crore.

BHIM has, in the last couple of years, been continuously losing market share to its rivals (Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay), who are better at attracting customers through cash back or discounts.

Paytm and PhonePe are said to have lion share in this market. The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led firm hailed as the largest contributor to UPI with 37 per cent market share till October.

Meanwhile, BHIM has been trying to find the way through merchant and utility bill payments. Now the govt reportedly has been partnering with merchants to offers lucrative discounts to attract customers. It has around 140 promotional schemes across categories and claims to have got a good response.

The total number of monthly merchant transactions on BHIM UPI has doubled as compared to last year, according to a spokesman of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

On BHIM, person-to-merchant transactions are to the tune of 25-30 per cent of overall UPI transactions, he added.

In August, Entrackr had reported that the govt is planning to target merchants and urge them to increase the use of the app at their business places.

Overall BHIM transactions have seen a growth of over 200 per cent in terms of the amount transferred in compare to the same period last year, as per NPCI. Whereas UPI witnessed 524.94 million transactions worth Rs 82,232.21 crore in November. It registered a growth of 9.67 per cent , quite a low figure in comparison to 25 per cent that UPI recorded in October.

NPCI now aims to get more merchants across online and offline. It has been already running promotional offers at merchants including Amazon, FoodPanda, Faasos, Box8, NetMeds, SpiceJet, Cinepolis, Thomascook and OYO. To penetrate the rural market, it has also been running awareness programmes.

On Google Play, it shows over 10 million downloads. It has 128 bank partners and available in 12 languages.