UPI signs off 2021 on a high: Dec transaction value crosses Rs 8 trillion

Record year for UPI, clocked 38 billion transactions worth Rs 71.59 trillion

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has ended calendar year 2021 (CY21) with record high transactions, both in volume and value terms. According to the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in December, UPI recorded 4.56 billion transactions, worth Rs 8.27 trillion.

After reporting marginal dip in November, UPI transactions bounced back in December, with the volume of transactions growing at 9.09 per cent month–on-month (MoM) and value of transactions growing at 7.6 per cent. On a year–on–year basis, in December, the volume of transactions more than doubled, while the value of transactions reported 99 per cent growth.

In October, UPI had reported record-high transactions of 4.21 billion, worth Rs 7.71 trillion. It was the first time UPI transactions topped the $100-billion mark in a month.

In CY21, UPI had processed more than 38 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 71.59 trillion. In 2021-22 (FY22) so far, it has processed more than 31 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 FY22, NPCI’s Chief Executive Officer Dilip Asbe had said. NPCI is the umbrella organisation for retail digital payments in India.

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. 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 payment platform to reach 4 billion transactions per month, from 3 billion. And, for three consecutive months (October, November, and December), UPI has processed 4 billion transactions.

According to a report by Jeffries, in FY22, UPI accounts for 50 per cent of retail digital payments in the country and is almost 4.5x of debit and credit card transactions. The report said digital payments are annualising at $2 trillion in India, with UPI being the largest driver, followed by cards and mobile wallets.

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. UPI AutoPay has seen massive traction in the past few months as recurring payments through cards witnessed disruptions while transitioning to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI’s) new guidelines on e-mandates.

Recently, the RBI has said since half the transactions on the UPI platform are of small value, it will enable them through an “on-device” wallet in UPI applications, to help reduce stress on the banking system and make the transaction process even simpler. Further, the RBI has also said it will launch a UPI-based digital payment solutions for feature phone users, who are in excess of 440 million.

Another popular payment platform, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) — an instant payment interbank electronic funds transfer system — processed 442.98 million transactions in December, amounting to Rs 3.96 trillion, up 7.52 per cent in volume terms and 8.8 per cent in value terms on a MoM basis. This is a record high for the IMPS platform, in terms of both volume and value of transactions processed. Its last peak came in October, when it processed 430.67 million transactions, worth Rs 3.7 trillion.

Further, toll collection through FASTag recorded 242.07 million transactions, worth Rs 3,679.42 crore, up 13 per cent in volume terms and 15.8 per cent in value terms on a MoM basis.