In August 2023, India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw a significant milestone as it crossed 10 billion transactions for the first time in a month. This information comes from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data as of August 30th, 2023, which reported a transaction volume of 10.24 billion.
Not only did UPI achieve a remarkable transaction volume, but it’s also on the verge of surpassing its previous high in terms of value. The previous record was US$ 183.68 billion (Rs. 15.18 trillion), and the latest figures are just slightly below that, at US$ 185.62 billion (Rs. 15.34 trillion), which was set in July of the same year.
Mr. Sunil Rongala, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy, Innovation, and Analytics at Worldline India, emphasized that despite reaching 10 billion transactions, there is still ample room for UPI transactions to grow. Notably, UPI peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions are exhibiting remarkable year-on-year growth rates, exceeding 100%. These P2M transactions hold a larger share compared to peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. Rongala anticipates that the continued expansion of P2M transactions will be a key driver of UPI’s growth, and he envisions the possibility of UPI transactions reaching 20 billion per month within the next 18-24 months.
Shifting the focus to Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), August 2023 saw a total of 473 million IMPS transactions recorded until August 30th, with a cumulative value of US$ 59.65 billion (Rs. 4.93 trillion). These numbers can be compared to 490 million transactions in July and 468.1 million in June. In terms of transaction value, there was a 2.4% increase from US$ 60.5 billion (Rs. 5 trillion) in June to US$ 61.95 billion (Rs. 5.12 trillion) in July.
