MUMBAI: Debt collection agencies are driving the massive jump in UPI transactions, a new study has found.
According to the research, daily UPI transactions have increased from Rs 75,743 crore in January 2025 to Rs 80,919 crore in July and further to Rs 90,446 crore so far in August.
Significantly, 12.8% of this is being controlled by debt agencies even as their volume contribution is a low 1.3%. The second slot is with groceries.
The debt collection agencies' transaction value has increased to Rs 93,857 crore in July 2025 from Rs 80,789 crore in April 2025, while their average ticket size has declined to Rs 5817 from Rs 5952, it was found.
The top 15-merchant categories account for 70% in terms of volume and 47% in terms of value in July 2025. Groceries account for 24.3% of the transactions and 8.8% in value, it added.
According to the NPCI data tabulated by SBI Research, the largest lender SBI is the top remitter member with 5.2 billion transactions, almost 3.4x larger than the second biggest remitter that was HDFC Bank while Yes Bank was the top beneficiary member with 8 billion transactions.
In terms of states, Maharashtra leads with 9.8% share, followed by Karnataka (5.5%) and UP (5.3%).
"Debt collection agencies top the UPI chart in value terms with 12.8% of the total UPI transaction value (with the average monthly of Rs 24,55,400 crore), which rose to Rs 90,446 crore so far in August while their volume contribution is a low 1.3%," SBI Research said on Monday.
The share of P2M transactions in total value transactions has increased from a mere 13% in Jun 2020 to 29% in July 2025. During the same period, the share in volumes has increased to 64% from 39% and average daily volumes has increased by 127 million to 675 million in August.
In the retail demand for money, the share of UPI in value has increased from merely 40% in November 2019 to 62% in January 2021 to a whopping 91% in May 2025. This is a clear indication that people are replacing cash with UPI, the report said.
Citing the latest NPCI data on merchant category classification so far this fiscal, the report said data on 29 categories with the share of these 29 merchant category codes at 82% in volume terms and 52% in value terms. There are almost 300 major merchant category codes and the NPCI has started with only 29 such codes, while NPCI has done commendable job we believe that data for at least 100 major MCCs should be given by NPCI.
Phonepe is the numero uno UPI app with 46% market share followed by Google Pay 35.6% and Paytm around 3% in both volume and value.