India Registers Estimated 131 Billion UPI transactions in Last Financial Year

There were approximately 131 billion Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in the country in the last financial year. Their total value was approximately Rs 200 lakh crore. According to data from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in the last financial year there were about 83.7 crore UPI transactions whose value was about Rs 139 lakh crore.

UPI provides the facility to send money through mobile apps. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that digital payments technology is being used even in rural areas of the country. He said, “Ordinary citizens of the country are doing UPI transactions. These are not just Adani and Ambani, they are ordinary sellers.” PhonePe’s share in UPI transactions is 48.3 percent and Google Pay’s 37.6 percent. The market share of Paytm Payments Bank has decreased after the restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Sitharaman said that India will become the third largest economy in the world in the next few years.

The scope of UPI has expanded rapidly in the last few years. It is also being expanded abroad. Recently UPI service was launched in Sri Lanka and Mauritius. India’s bilateral economic relations with these two countries are strengthening. RuPay card service has also been launched in Mauritius. This will make UPI service available for Indians traveling to Sri Lanka and Mauritius. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had described it as linking historical relations with modern digital technology. Modi said that UPI has taken up the new responsibility of uniting allies with India. He had said, “This is a special occasion for three friendly countries in the Indian Ocean region as our historical relations are being combined with modern digital technology.”

The scope of digital rupee is also increasing in the country. This has made it easier for RBI to meet its target of 10 lakh transactions per day by the end of last year. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or e-Rupee has been created using distributed ledger technology as a digital alternative to cash.