UPI crosses 10 billion transactions in September for second straight month

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which is run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), reported 10.56 billion transactions in September, a dip from the 10.58 billion transactions reported in August, the first time the instant payment mechanism crossed the 10 billion transaction mark.

In terms of the total value of funds settled, UPI recorded Rs 15.80 lakh crore in September, slightly more than the Rs 15.76 lakh crore recorded in August.

In January 2018, there were 151 million UPI transactions, and by June 2023, this number had surged to 9.3 billion, said a report by global payment services firm Worldline. This growth was mainly attributed to the rise in Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions.

The number of banks live on UPI currently stands at 484.

Per a report from PwC India, UPI transactions are likely to reach 1 billion per day by 2026-27, constituting approximately 90% of India’s retail digital payments.

As of August, data from NPCI revealed that PhonePe recorded nearly 5 billion UPI transactions, to corner a share of almost 47%. Rival GooglePay recorded nearly 3.8 billion transactions, while Paytm logged nearly 1.5 billion transactions.

Along with UPI, data released by NPCI showed that other retail payment modes have also remained consistent. Immediate Payment Service or IMPS, an inter-bank fund transfer mechanism, reported 473 million transactions in September, a slight decline from 489 million transactions in August. The value of transactions stood at Rs 5.07 lakh crore in September, against Rs 5.14 lakh crore a month earlier.

Fastag, an automated toll collection system run by NPCI, reported 299 million transactions, settling around Rs 5,089 crore in September. In August it stood at 308 million transactions, settling Rs 5,175 crore.