UPI records 9.5% surge in transactions in August

Unified payments interface or UPI has recorded a 9.56% surge in the volume of transactions and a 5.4% jump in the value of transactions in August as compared to July.

UPI processed 3.55 billion or 355 crore transactions worth Rs 6,39,116 crore in August, data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows.

In July, UPI crossed the 3 billion volume mark for the first time since its inception in 2016 as it clocked 3.24 or 324 crore transactions amounting to Rs 6,06,281 crore during the month.

This is significant month-on-month growth after the second wave of the pandemic. The digital payments railroad saw a dip during the peak of COVID-19 i.e April and May, however, it soon recovered as businesses across the segment opened up again after lockdown imposed in several parts of the country.

In terms of market share, PhonePe has been leading since December 2021. As of July, PhonePe had a 46% market share followed by Google Pay and Paytm with 34.45% and 11.94% respectively. The top five list of UPI apps includes Amazon Pay and Axis Bank’s apps.

Paytm has shifted its focus from the UPI and positioned itself as a full-stack payments suite including wallet and payments bank, payment gateway and point of sale. 

To expand their use cases, PhonePe recently entered the insurance broking space whereas Google Pay partnered with fintech startup Setu to let users open fixed deposits (FDs).

While NPCI's new rule is going to limit the market share of any third party UPI apps to a maximum of 30%, the leading UPI apps in the country will get sufficient time to comply with the mandate. 

UPI, which is counted amongst the most successful real-time payments systems globally, has also explored its use cases in foreign markets. In July, NPCI launched the payments service in Bhutan and recently it partnered with Mashreq to offer acceptance of the UPI in the UAE.