UPI records 2.21 Bn transactions in November

Unified Payments Interface or UPI has registered 2.21 billion transactions worth Rs 3,90,999 crore in November, data released by NPCI shows. 

As compared to October, this is 6.7% and 1.26% surge in volume and value, respectively. In October, UPI had registered 2.07 billion transactions amounting to Rs 3,86,106 crore. 

The NPCI-owned digital payments system had already crossed 1.1 billion transactions worth Rs 206,517 crore or 2.06 trillion in the first half of the last month. 

While the ongoing pandemic and the fear of contracting a virus with physical currency has helped UPI-enabled apps to grow, October-November being the festive season appeared to be one of the other major reasons behind the spike in transaction volume.  

Early in November, WhatsApp was also allowed to go live on UPI in the multi-bank model. According to NPCI, WhatsApp Pay can expand its user base in a graded manner starting with a maximum registered user base of 20 million in UPI.

UPI’s market share is mainly driven by Google Pay and PhonePe, which control close to 80% of total volume, however, the entry of WhatsApp in UPI is expected to play a crucial role and change the current position of leading players. 

As of October, PhonePe had the largest market share of 40.3% followed by Google Pay with 39.5%. The latest development has also come after NPCI had announced that it would put a cap of 30% of the total volume of transactions processed in UPI for all Third-Party App Providers (TPAPs). The new rule formulated by NPCI will be applicable from January 1, 2021.