UPI transactions reach 10.56 billion in September

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), registered a total of 10.56 billion transactions in September 2023, according to a report from global payments services firm Worldline.

This marked a slight decrease from the 10.58 billion transactions reported in August, despite being the first time the instant payment system crossed the 10 billion transaction threshold.

Regarding the aggregate value of funds processed, UPI recorded INR 15.80 trillion in transactions for September, which was a marginal increase compared to the INR 15.76 trillion recorded in August.

Currently, 484 banks are actively participating in the UPI system.

A report by PwC India predicts that UPI transactions could reach 1 billion per day by 2026-27, constituting approximately 90% of India’s retail digital payments.

As of August 2023, data from NPCI indicated that PhonePe accounted for nearly 5 billion UPI transactions, securing a share of approximately 47%. Rival GooglePay recorded nearly 3.8 billion transactions, while Paytm logged around 1.5 billion transactions.

In addition to UPI, NPCI data revealed that other retail payment methods remained stable. The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), an interbank fund transfer system, reported 473 million transactions in September, a slight decline from the 489 million transactions in August. The total transaction value was INR 5.07 trillion in September, compared to INR 5.14 trillion in the previous month.

Fastag, an automated toll collection system operated by NPCI, reported 299 million transactions, amounting to around INR 5,089 crore in September. In August, Fastag recorded 308 million transactions, settling INR 5,175 crore.

Source: Economic Times