Digital payments spike, but cash circulation still high, shows data

The burgeoning volumes of unified payments interface (UPI) prove that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital payments in the country multi-fold in the last two years. This is reflected in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) digital payment index, which has shot up to 304.06 as of September 2021 from 207.84 as of March 2020.

UPI has been the biggest beneficiary of the digital payments drive. In FY22 so far, UPI has processed a little over 40.49 billion transactions worth ~74.51 trillion. This is almost double the number of transactions (in volume terms) in FY21. Data suggests