Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based transactions have dropped by two percent, reporting 781.79 million transactions in April, revealed National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The UPI transactions reported in April were worth Rs 1.42 trillion.
As per the NPCI data, transaction volumes witnessed a decline of 2.2 percent in April as compared to March. In March, 799.54 million transactions worth Rs 1.33 trillion were recorded.
UPI reported 93,000 transactions in August 2016, the year it was launched.
On a year-on-year basis, UPI-based payments reported a 4.1 times, or 311 percent rise. Currently, 144 banks are live on UPI, as compared to 21 banks at the time of its launch.
UPI was developed by NPCI, set up under the guidance of the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), as a real-time payments system that enables users to transfer money across multiple bank accounts, without furnishing details of the beneficiary’s bank account.
The pilot project was launched in April 2016 and banks began uploading their UPI-enabled apps four months later.
UPI picked up the momentum after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the UPI-based, Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app, in December 2016, soon after he announced demonetisation.
