For the first time in its operational history, transactions made via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have crossed the 900 million mark in August, led by an augment in merchant adoption of the payment channel and improved smartphone usage in certain states.
As per the latest data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a total of 918 million transactions worth Rs 1.54 lakh crore were processed on the interoperable digital payments channel in August. This is an 11.6 percent surge in volumes and 5.5 percent in value as compared to July when 822 million transactions worth Rs 1.46 lakh crore were recorded.
These numbers are expected to grow further keeping the festive season between September to December in mind.
“The numbers have been driven by the consistent core growth in the last few months,” said Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI.
“We have seen good adoption across the board in both large and small cities,” added Rai.
UPI was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 2016, just before demonetisation, with a participation of 21 banks on the platform. Since tahen, over 120 banks became a part of it the allowing real-time mutual transactions for both consumers and merchants.
