UPI sets new record, posts 2.8 Bn transactions in June

Unified Payments Interface has bounced back from the hit it took in recent months and has recorded its highest transaction volume and value in June, data released by NPCI shows. 

The digital payments railroad has registered 2.8 billion or 280 crore transactions worth Rs 5,47,373 crore in June, a tweet from NPCI said. This is a 10.6% jump in volume and 11.56% jump in value as compared to May in which UPI recorded 2.53 billion or 253 crore transactions worth Rs 4,90,638 crore.

It’s worth noting that UPI recorded its previous highest figures in March which was 2.73 billion worth Rs 5,04,886.44 crore. However, it faced a decline in the number of transactions in April and May.

It was anticipated that UPI would likely see a fall in transaction volume since several businesses were shut due to the COVID-19 induced lockdowns in several parts of the country during April and May. But things started to improve in June for businesses as states started to gradually ease the strict lockdowns after the number of active cases started falling. 

The UPI ecosystem is primarily dominated by three players: PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm. As of May, PhonePe had a 45.27% market share followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 34.67% and 11.44% market share, respectively.

NPCI is yet to publish market share data for June.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp also appears to be gearing up to take on these players as the Facebook-owned messaging app looks to expand its payments feature for more users. According to Entrackr’s sources, NPCI has given approval to onboard more users to WhatsApp, which was allowed to onboard 20 million users on its UPI-based payment platform in November 2020.

WhatsApp, which claims 530 million users in India, has not been able to post a decent number since its entry in November. According to NPCI data, it has recorded a mere 0.51 million transactions amounting to Rs 48.15 crore in May and has not crossed 1 million in volume since November 2020.