Mobile wallet transaction volumes witness 12% rise in March

After five months of an interval, mobile wallet-based transactions have witnessed a slight rise in March this year.

About 384.89 million transactions worth Rs 15,999 crore were recorded in March, which is an increase of 19% in transactions volume from last September and 11.55% from the preceding month, as per RBI data.

Around 324.16 million transactions amounting to Rs 15,102 crore took place in September. In February, close to 345 million transactions worth Rs 14,279 crore took place.

The rise is attributed to the year-end occurrence when the volume of transactions rises. India has seen a spurt in digital transactions since November 2016, when the government announced demonetisation of all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes.

In 2018-19, as per RBI, there has been 30% Year-on-Year jump in value and 37% growth in the volume of transactions in compared to 2017-18.

In September last year, mobile wallets witnessed most of the decline after the SC ruling on Aadhaar. The apex court barred private entities to use Aadhaar for electronic know your customer (e-KYC) to sign up a new customer.

This led to about 6-time rise in customer verification cost for mobile wallets.  This raised big concern over their completion of customer verification.

In October, despite the SC ruling, mobile wallets recorded around 368.45 Mn transactions amounting to Rs 18,786 Cr.

Transactions through mobile wallets fell in November as mobile wallet companies had to stop using Aadhaar for electronic know your customer (e-KYC) to enrol new customers.

Meanwhile, RBI had asked mobile wallets to complete the process by end of February 2019.

However, during the same period, UPI, which was launched in August 2016, witnessed sustain increase in transactions.

It hit a record high of 799.54 million transactions, 93K more transactions than when it was launched, worth Rs 1.33 trillion in March.