The RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday announced that daily UPI (unified payment interface) transactions across the country surpassed 36 crores in one year, a 50 percent jump from 24 crores in February 2022.
In terms of value, these transactions are worth ₹6.27 lakh crore, which is registering a growth of 17 percent from ₹5.36 lakh crore in February 2022. At the RBI headquarters, While launching Digital Payments Awareness Week, the governor discloses this data to the reporters. He also said that the total digital payment transactions crossed over Rs 1,000 crore each month during the last three months.
He also said that the success story of India’s payment systems tempts several other countries to adopt them. They have shown their interest in replicating this system. It’s a matter of pride. Since December 2022, India’s payment systems have a record of over 1000 crore transactions per month. This shows its acceptance by consumers due to its robustness to payment systems. According to the recent report of a pan-India digital payments survey, out of 90,000 respondents, 42 percent of respondents are using digital payments.
In volume terms, in January 2023, the number of UPI transactions crossed 800 crores, while NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) saw a daily volume of 3.18 crore transactions on 28 February.
Since the launch of UPI in 2016, it has appeared as the most popular and preferred payment mode, leading person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions accounting for 75 percent of total digital payments.
On the tokenization exercise, he said that RBI had tokenized over 48 crore cards, which managed over 86 crore transactions, which makes it the world’s largest tokenization exercise. The tokenized transactions have grown from 35 percent initially to 62 percent.
The acceptance of digital payments infrastructure has increased from 170 million touch points to 260 million touch points, which shows a growth of 53 percent.
The governor also launched the ‘Har Payment Digital’ mission which aims to strengthen the RBI’s commitment to deepening digital payments in the country.
While UPI has allowed the digital payments facility to retail outlets, kiranas, street vendors, small or large business people, etc., Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) has ensured the shift of bill payments from cash/cheque to digital mode and National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) ) system has focused on shifting the toll payment to digital mode.
The governor further said that the RBI has decided to adopt 75 villages to mark 75 years of independence. Under this program, Payment System Operators (PSOs) will choose 75 villages and convert them into digital payment-enabled villages.
The RBI Deputy Governor Rabi Shankar said that the financial formalization of the economy is essential as money is at the core of any economy. He added that RBI’s Digital Vision 2025 is to make digital payments available everywhere and every time so that everyone can make digital payments. In the last five years, digital payments have grown 15 percent annually, he said.
