UPI breaks 5-month growth streak; transactions decline 0.71% in November

In November, UPI recorded 4.18 billion transactions worth Rs 7.68 trillion

After a stellar showing by India’s flagship payments platform, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in October, wherein the volume of transactions crossed 4.2 billion and value of those transactions surpassed the $100-billion (Rs 7.49-trillion) mark, it has continued this momentum in November, with the platform recording 4.18 billion transactions in November, amounting to Rs 7.68 trillion. But on a month-on-month basis, both the volume and value of transactions dipped somewhat — 0.71 per cent in volume terms and 0.4 per cent in value terms, given the high base. 

In October, the UPI platform touched record highs — both in terms of value and volume of transactions, aided by the festival season spending. On a year-on-year basis, in November, the volume of transactions was up 89 per cent, while value of transactions was up 96 per cent.

In the calendar year so far, UPI has processed more than 34 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 65.39 trillion. In the fiscal year so far, it has processed nearly 27 billion transactions, surpassing the transactions processed in 2020-21 (FY21). In FY21, the platform processed around 22 billion transactions. The goal is to touch 40-42 billion transactions in the current fiscal year (2021-22), the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) Chief Executive Officer Dilip Asbe had said. NPCI is the umbrella organisation for retail digital payments in the country.

Launched in 2016, UPI has seen tremendous adoption, further accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak. It crossed 1 billion transactions for the first time in October 2019. The next 1 billion came in under a year. In October 2020, UPI processed more than 2 billion transactions for the first time. Further, the journey from 2 billion transactions a month to 3 billion was traversed in 10 months, indicating the incredible popularity of UPI as a platform for retail digital payments among consumers. It took only three months for the payments platform to reach 4 billion transactions per month, from 3 billion.

Experts have suggested that the next phase of growth in UPI will come from the AutoPay feature, which allows recurring payments of up to Rs 5,000. At a time when recurring payments through cards is seeing huge disruptions because of the transition to the Reserve Bank of India’s new guidelines on e-mandates, UPI AutoPay has seen massive traction, with mandate registration recording impressive growth. Almost 9 million recurring mandates have been registered on the platform in the past three months.

Another popular payments platform, Immediate Payments Service — an instant payment inter-bank electronic funds transfer system — processed 412 million transactions in November, amounting to Rs 3.64 trillion, down 4 per cent in volume terms and 1.64 per cent in value terms. In October it had touched an all-time high, both in terms of volume and value of transactions, processing 430.67 million transactions, worth Rs 3.7 trillion.

Toll collection through FASTag recorded 214.13 million transactions, worth Rs 3,177 crore. In October, the platform had recorded 214.23 million transactions, amounting to Rs 3,356.74 crore.