Name:- Divya Sandeep Zope

Class:- F. Y. Bcom
Div:- E
Roll No:- 576
Subject:- Banking And Finance

“UPI hits record high in April with 5.58 billion transactions

worth Rs 9.83 trillion”

India’s flagship digital payment platform, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has started the current
financial year (FY23) on a positive note, with 5.58 billon transactions amounting to Rs 9.83 trillion
processed in April. This is a record high for the payment platform, both in terms of volume and
value of transactions since its inception. Last month (March), UPI breached 5 billion transactions
in a month for the first time. Compared to March, volume of transactions was up 3.33 per cent and
value of transactions was up 2.36 per cent. In March, UPI processed 5.4 billion transactions
amounting to Rs 9.6 trillion.However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the volume of transactions
jumped 111 per cent and value of transactions increased by almost 100 per cent. In April 2021,
UPI had processed 2.64 billion transactions worth Rs 4.93 trillion. Initially in FY22, transactions
had dipped slightly due to the second of the wave of the pandemic. But, since then, UPI
transactions have been on an upward trajectory, mirroring the recovery in the broader
economy.Infact, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital payments in the country in
the last two years. In FY22, UPI processed more than 46 billion transactions amounting to over Rs
84.17 trillion, thus breaching the $1 trillion mark. And, in FY21, it had processed 22.28 billion
transactions, amounting to Rs 41.03 trillion. So, both volume and value of transactions doubled in
a year’s time, indicating the meteoric rise seen in the adoption of digital payments, especially UPI,
in the country. Further, since the pandemic began, UPI’s transaction volume and value has gone up
by over 350 per cent. While initially UPI was considered as a preferred payment mode for peer-to-
peer (P2P) transactions, it has now emerged as the preferred mode for even peer-to-merchant
(P2M) transactions, with over 56 per cent market share in volume terms in 2021. UPI crossed 1
billion transactions for the first time in October 2019, almost 3 years after its launch in 2016. But,
the next billion came in under a year, as in October 2020, UPI processed more than 2 billion
transactions. In the next ten months, UPI processed 3 billion transactions. And, it took only three
months for the payment platform to reach 4 billion transactions per month, from 3 billion. And, the
incremental one billion transactions were achieved in just six months’ time. The next target for UPI
is to process a billion transactions a day in the next 3 – 5 years. According to experts, the next
boost to the already burgeoning UPI transactions will come the AutoPay feature, which has seen
massive adoption since recurring payments through cards saw disruption due to the Reserve Bank
of India’s new guidelines on e-mandates. The AutoPay feature of UPI allows recurring payments
of upto Rs 5,000. Recent initiatives of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and NPCI will also boost
the transaction count and value in the coming days. NPCI has launched the “on-device” wallet
feature for UPI users, which will be known as “UPI Lite”, for facilitating small ticket transactions.
NPCI is of the opinion that this “on-device” wallet feature will go a long way in achieving its pipe
dream of processing one billion transactions a day in the next 3-5 years. Further, the RBI in
association with NPCI has launched the UPI123Pay for 400 million feature phones which will
allow all transactions to be done through feature phones without an internet connection.