UPI crosses 4 Bn transactions in October

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has crossed 4 billion transactions for the first time in a month as the digital payments railroad has recorded 4.21 billion or 421 crore transactions amounting to Rs 7, 71, 444 crore, ​​data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows. 

For the first time, UPI has achieved a 4 billion transaction milestone since its inception in 2016. This is a 15% surge in the number of transactions and 17.8% rise in the value of transactions as compared to September in which it had processed 3.65 billion or 365 crore transactions worth Rs 6,54,351 crore.

The surge in transactions can be attributed to the rise in the number of transactions during the festive season. It’s worth noting that several e-commerce players had run sales and discounts during October where payments via UPI had a significant contribution.

We have seen a similar trend in the past where UPI had recorded a sudden rise in the number of transactions during the festive season i.e. September-October period. For example, it crossed the 1 billion milestone for the first time in October 2019 and the 2 billion milestone in October 2020. 

Of late, UPI has also increased its use cases and its AutoPay feature that allows recurring payments of upto Rs 5,000 is one of them. 

UPI market share is primarily dominated by PhonePe and Google Pay, controlling over 80% of the total transactions. The Walmart-backed company has been the leader in terms of processing amounts since December 2020. 

In September, PhonePe and Google Pay recorded 1,653.19 million and 1,294.56 million transactions respectively. The split figures for October are yet to be released by NPCI.

Apart from India, NPCI is also exploring foreign markets to push UPI to the next level. In July, NPCI had launched the payment system in Bhutan and partnered with Mashreq to offer acceptance of the UPI in the UAE.

Most recently, India’s central bank RBI and its Singapore counterpart had launched a project to link their respective fast payment systems. The project will enable fund transfers on the two networks without getting on-boarded onto the other payment system.