80% of digital payments in India come from UPI, says RBI Governor
Upstox
3 min read • Updated: March 5, 2024, 11:49 AM
Summary
The UPI has become the most talked about fast payment system not only in India but across the world. Today, India accounts for nearly 46% of the world’s digital transactions (as per 2022 data).
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said that UPI is the biggest contributor to the growth of digital payments in India and constitutes 80% of digital payments.
Addressing the Digital Payments Awareness Week celebrations on March 4, Das said the volume of UPI transactions rose from 43 crore in calendar year (CY) 2017 to 11,761 crore in CY 2023.
He said it took 1668 days to reach the first 100 crore UPI person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions, while the latest 1000 crore transactions took just 45 days.
"Similarly, for UPI P2P transactions, while reaching the first 1000 crore, UPI peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions took 1329 days, the latest 1000 crore transactions took 65 days or just over two months. The recent progress of the UPI has thus been enormous. Currently, UPI is processing close to 42 crore transactions in a day," the RBI governor added.
The retail digital payments in India have also grown from 162 crore transactions in the financial year (FY) 2012-13 to more than 14,726 crore transactions in FY 2023-24 (till February 2024), around a 90-fold increase over 12 years.
"Today, India accounts for nearly 46% of the world's digital transactions (as per 2022 data). The extraordinary growth in digital payments is also evident in the Reserve Bank's Digital Payment Index, which has witnessed a four-fold rise in the last five years," Das said.
Noting that the UPI has become the most talked about fast payment system in India and worldwide, Das emphasised that there is considerable scope for expanding the use of digital payments in India.
He said that since the launch of RBI's mission 'Har Payment Digital' in March 2023, 6.65 crore new UPI users have been added between March 1, 2023 and January 31, 2024.
What is UPI?
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time payment system that allows users to link multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application. UPI provides seamless money transfer between bank accounts using a mobile device with internet connectivity.
UPI has also evolved to advanced functionalities such as offline payments through UPI Lite X, payments through feature phones (UPI 123Pay) and AI-based conversational payments (hello! UPI).
Key features of UPI include:
- Available on a 24x7x365 basis
- Single mobile application to access multiple bank accounts and conduct transactions
- Immediate fund transfer
- UPI can be used for various purposes, including paying utility bills, online purchases, and merchants transactions
- UPI pin guarantees the security of UPI transactions.