UPI volume jumps 27% to touch 145 bn in first half

UPI transactions through popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in volume terms have witnessed a 27% jump to around 145 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year.

This is against UPI volume 114 billion during April-September quarter of the previous financial year, as per data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

However, the UPI transaction during the value term rose a slightly lower rate of 20% to ₹177 lakh crore as against ₹148 lakh crore during the first six months of the current financial year. As regards September, the UPI volume moderated by 1.7% to 24.07 billion compared to 24.5 billion last month.

On a month-on-month basis, value, too, declined 1.5% to ₹29.37 lakh crore against ₹29.82 lakh crore in August. The figures come a fortnight ahead of the implementation of the new merchant discount rate fee on high-value UPI payments for merchants.

Industry watchers attributed the dip to the fact August has 31 days versus 30 in September and pointed out average transactions/day were higher in September at 802 million versus 791 million in August. NPCI, an initiative of the RBI and the Indian Banks’ Association, is an umbrella organisation for retail payments and settlement systems in India. It runs UPI used for real-time payments between peers or at merchants’ end while making purchases.