Statsguru: From UPI to IMPS, mapping digital transactions in India

Wallets have also made a comeback, with rising transaction volumes

Last week, the Reserve Bank of India announced a new service for feature phones, allowing over 400 million people to use Unified Payments Interface (UPI) seamlessly. 

The new feature is the third iteration of the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) service launched in 2016. It is expected that the new feature will onboard more users and help UPI cross the Rs 10-trillion monthly mark (chart 1). 

The need for the new service arose because despite transaction volume for digital payments growing, transactions from USSD service were declining. In February, Rs 0.14 billion worth of transactions were done using the USSD