Even as the Indian government allocated Rs 1,500 crore in the Union Budget to boost the penetration of digital payments, it has emerged that the flagship payments platform UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has logged 2.3 billion transactions worth Rs 4,31,181 crore or Rs 4.31 trillion in January.
According to the stats released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), this is a 3% jump in volume and a 3.6% surge in value for UPI from December, which had seen 2.23 billion transactions amounting to Rs 4,16,176.21 crore or Rs 4.16 trillion.
UPI is the common system that powers multiple bank accounts into a mobile application, merging several banking features, seamless fund routing and merchant payments. It also caters to the "Peer to Peer" collect request.
NPCI manages the UPI (United Payments Interface) and RuPay.
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PhonePe, Google Pay continue to dominate
Phenomenal ! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth ₹ 4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPIs transaction value jumped 76.5 % while transaction value jumped nearly 100%. Took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month. Next billion came in less than a year.February 3, 2021
The UPI's recent numbers were of great excitement to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. He tweeted: "Phenomenal! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth ₹4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPIs transaction value jumped 76.5 % while transaction value jumped nearly 100%. Took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month. Next billion came in less than a year." Niti Aayog, the Indian government's policy think-tank, oversees the operations of NPCI.
NPCI did not release the market share of UPI apps for January. But it may be recalled that PhonePe emerged as the largest market shareholder in terms of the number of transactions in the previous months. The two, who hold 80% of the market share, can be expected to have held sway in January too. This of course will come down this year as the NPCI-ordained 30% cap will kick in. Paytm, Amazon Pay, BHIM and others command the rest of the market share.
PhonePe had recorded 902.03 million transactions worth Rs 182,126.88 crore in December whereas Google Pay registered 854.49 million transactions amounting to Rs 176,199.33 crore during the same period.
NPCI had also allowed WhatsApp to roll out its UPI-based payments feature for more users. However, for various reasons, its usage has not gained any strong momentum so far.
WhatsApp registered 0.81 million transactions worth Rs 29.72 crore in December, bettering its previous month's show.
