
MUMBAI: Retail digital payments have grown from 162 crore transactions in 2013 to over 16,416 crore transactions in 2024, which is nearly 100-fold jump during the past 12 years, show the latest payments system report by the Reserve Bank.
The success begins and ends with the UPI, the share of which in total digital payments has grown to 83% in 2024 from 34% in 2019. In 2024 alone, the country saw as much as 208.5 billion digital payment transactions, the RBI said.
On the other hand, the share of other digital payment methods such as national electronic funds transfer (NEFT), real-time gross settlement (RTGS), immediate payment service (IMPS) and credit and debit cards fell from 66% in 2019 to 17% at the end of 2024.
This remarkable growth in the payment infrastructure and payments performance is apparent in digital payment index published by the RBI on Monday, which has seen over four-fold rise in past six years (to 445.50 in March 2024, from 100 in March 2018), as per the report. Overall digital payments have grown exponentially in the past decade.
“While in 2013, there were 222 crore digital transactions valued at `772 lakh crore, it has increased 94 times in volume and over 3.5 times in value to over 20,787 crore transactions valued at `2,758 lakh crore in 2024,” the report said. In the past five years, digital payments have increased 6.7 times in volume and 1.6 times in value.
This amounts to a five-year compounded annual growth of 45.9% in terms of digital payments volume and 10.2% in terms of value. From nascent payment ecosystem, comprising traditional card-based payments, it has transformed to an ecosystem offering a bouquet of digital payment options catering to need of the consumer - from instant payment systems (UPI, IMPS), small value payment systems (PPI, UPI Lite), large value payment (RTGS), bill payment (BBPS), bulk payment (NACH), offline payment (UPI Lite X), government payments (NACH, APBS), toll payments (NETC) and more.
Payment infra rises four-fold in six years
The remarkable growth in the payment infrastructure and payments performance is apparent in digital payment index published by the RBI on Monday, which has seen more than four-fold rise in past six years (to 445.50 in March 2024, from 100 in March 2018), as per the report. Overall digital payments have grown exponentially in the past decade