MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said payments through unified payment interface (UPI) have grown exponentially in the past 12 months, with daily transactions
crossing 36 crores in March, which is a rise of 50% from 24 crores in February 2022.
In value terms, these transactions are worth Rs 6.27 lakh crore, registering a growth of 17% from Rs 5.36 lakh crore in February 2022, said the Governor while launching the Digital Payments Awareness Week at the RBI headquarters.
He also said the overall monthly digital payment transactions crossed over Rs 1,000-crore mark each month during the past three months. “Our payment systems are talked about globally and several countries have shown interest to replicate our success story. It is a matter of pride that our payment systems have witnessed over 1,000 crore transactions every month since December 2022.
This speaks volumes of the robustness of our payments ecosystem and acceptance by consumers,” Das said. In terms of volume, the number of UPI transactions exceeded 800 crores in January 2023, while NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) witnessed the highest-ever daily volume of 3.18 crore transactions on February 28.
The UPI was launched in 2016, and since then it has emerged as the most popular and preferred payment mode pioneering person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions accounting for 75% of total digital payments.
The volume of UPI transactions has increased manifold from 0.45 crore in January 2017 to 804 crore in January 2023. The value of UPI transactions has increased from just Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 12.98 lakh crore during the same period.
On the tokenisation exercise, he said the RBI has created over 48 crore card tokens, which have processed over 86 crore transactions, making it the world’s biggest tokenisation exercise. Tokenised transactions have increased from 35% initially to 62% of the ecosystem.
Acceptance of digital payments infrastructure has increased from 17 crore touch points to 26 crore touch points, which is an increase of 53%. The Governor also launched ‘Har payment digital’ mission which seeks to reinforce RBI’s commitment to deepening digital payments in the country.
Das further said the RBI has decided to adopt 75 villages by involving village-level entrepreneurs as part of the 75 digital villages programme. Under this programme, PSOs will adopt 75 villages and convert them into digital payment-enabled villages.
Addressing the same event, deputy governor Rabi Sankar said that the digital vision 2025 of the RBI (when the department turns 20 years) is to ensure digital payments by everyone, everywhere and
every time.