RBI Guv says UPI payments grew 50% in a year, launches mission for digital push

Payments through UPI (Unified Payment Interface) have grown exponentially in the past 12 months, with the number of daily transactions crossing 36 crore, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das has said. The figure is up by 50% from 24 crore in February 2022.

In terms of value, these transactions are worth Rs 6.27 lakh crore, registering a growth of 17% from Rs 5.36 lakh crore in February 2022, Das told reporters while launching the Digital Payments Awareness Week at the RBI headquarters in Mumbai on Monday (March 6) afternoon.

Das added that the overall monthly digital payment transactions had crossed the Rs 1,000-crore-mark each month during the past three months.

“Our payment systems are talked about globally, and several countries have shown interest in replicating our success story. It is a matter of pride that our payment systems have witnessed over 1,000 crore transactions every month since December 2022. This speaks volumes of the robustness of our payments ecosystem and acceptance by consumers. A recent pan-India digital payments survey (covering 90,000 respondents) revealed that 42% of respondents have used digital payments,” Das said.

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In terms of volume, the number of UPI transactions exceeded 800 crore in January 2023, while NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) witnessed the highest ever daily volume of 3.18 crore transactions on February 28.

Manifold rise in volume

The UPI was launched in 2016, and since then, it has emerged as the most popular and preferred payment mode pioneering person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions accounting for 75% of the total digital payments.

The volume of UPI transactions has increased manifold from 0.45 crore in January 2017 to 804 crore in January 2023. The value of UPI transactions has increased from just Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 12.98 lakh crore during the same period.

On tokenisation exercise, Das said the RBI has created over 48 crore card tokens, which have processed over 86 crore transactions, making it the world’s biggest tokenisation exercise. Tokenised transactions have increased from 35% initially to 62% of the ecosystem.

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The customer-friendly recurring mandate framework has helped increase the number of e-mandates from 2–3 crore earlier or worth Rs 130 crore to around 15 crore or worth Rs 1,700 crore now.

Acceptance of digital payments infrastructure has increased from 17 crore touch points to 26 crore touch points, which is an increase of 53%.

Har Payment Digital mission

The governor also launched the Har Payment Digital mission, which seeks to reinforce RBI’s commitment to deepen digital payments in the country.

While the UPI has facilitated digital payments to retail outlets, kiranas, street vendors, etc., the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) has ensured the migration of bill payments from cash/cheques to digital mode, and the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) system has helped with the migration of the toll payments to a digital mode with enhancing efficiency in terms of reduced waiting time at toll plazas, the governor said.

The National Automated Clearing House (NACH) system has also facilitated digital Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) payments and helped eliminate leakages in the system.

Das further said the RBI has decided to adopt 75 villages by involving village-level entrepreneurs as part of the 75 Digital Villages programme. Under this programme, PSOs will adopt 75 villages and convert them into digital-payment-enabled villages.

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Addressing the same event, which also marked the 18th year of the Department of Payments Settlement Systems at the RBI, deputy governor Rabi Sankar, who heads the department, said over the past five years, digital payments have grown 15% annually.

Financial formalisation of the economy is a must, as money is at the core of any economy, Sankar said, adding the digital vision 2025 of the RBI (when the department turns 20 years) is to ensure digital payments by everyone, everywhere and every time.

(With agency inputs)