UPI crosses a billion transactions in October

UPI (unified payments interface) transactions in India touched more than a billion for the month of October, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said in a statement Friday.

The total number of transactions jumped to 1.15 billion in October 2019 from 0.96 billion in September 2019. The total transaction value of UPI increased about 19% to Rs 1.91 lakh crore, in comparison to September.

“It is encouraging to witness digital payments being widely accepted across the country. This momentous achievement is a result of the continued support that UPI has received from the ecosystem including banks and third-party payment apps and the policy initiatives by government and RBI in the digital payments,” Dilip Asbe, chief executive and managing director at NPCI said in the statement. 

UPI as a technology allows users to transfer money on a real-time basis, across multiple bank accounts without revealing details of one’s bank account to the other party.

The mobile-based payments system has become one of the most prominent forms of digital payments. At present, 142 banks are live on UPI, compared to 21 banks when the payments system was launched in 2016. 

It reportedly toppled debit and credit card transactions in the financial year ended March 2019, according to data available with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and NPCI. About 5.35 billion UPI-based transactions were recorded in FY 18-19 as compared to 915.2 million in FY 17-18, NPCI said.

In August, NPCI launched UPI 2.0 in a bid to further push the adoption of digital payments across the country. This resulted in additions to its key features such as ‘linking of overdraft account’, ‘one-time mandate’, ‘invoice in the inbox’ and ‘signed intent and QR’.

NPCI’s other products include RuPay card, Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), BHIM Aadhaar, National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) and Bharat BillPay.