The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has continued its growth trend, reporting a 3.14% month-on-month increase to 2.3 billion transactions in January 2021.
As per the data shared by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Twitter, the total transaction value on the payments interface touched Rs 4,31,181 crore in January, up 3.61 % from Rs 4,16,176 crore in December 2020.
The NPCI is yet to publish which payments apps were used the most for UPI transactions in January. In December, PhonePe witnessed 902.03 million transactions, Google Pay saw 854.49 million, while Paytm had 260.09 million transactions. Together, they made up nearly 80% of all UPI transactions.
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Subscribe to our newsletter.Newly-launched WhatsApp Pay reported a two-fold growth within a month of its launch. It saw 0.81 million transactions, amounting to Rs 29.72 crore, in December 2020.
The instant payments infrastructure currently has 207 banks using its platform.
The fintech sector got a shot in the arm in Budget 2021, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing a Rs 1,500 crore scheme to provide financial incentives for the promotion of digital payments. Sithraman also proposed to make Ahmedabad-based GIFT City a global financial hub.
However, the Budget did not address the zero merchant discount rate (MDR) reversal clause for RuPay debit cards and UPI, leaving the Payments Council of India with an unfulfilled wish list. MDR is a fee that banks charge merchants whenever a customer uses credit or debit cards to process payments.
