Digital payments in India touch Rs 38.3 lakh cr at over 23 bn transactions

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), debit and credit cards, prepaid payment instruments like mobile wallets, and prepaid cards logged 23.06 billion transactions amounting Rs 38.3 lakh crore in the third quarter this year, a new report showed on Monday.

At the top, the UPI clocked over 19.65 billion transactions in volume and Rs 32.5 lakh crore in terms of value.

The UPI transactions volume and value almost doubled since last year as it recorded about an 88 per cent increase in volume and over 71 per cent increase in value in Q3 as compared to the same quarter last year, according to Worldline India's 'Digital Payments Report' for the third quarter.

The top three UPI apps in terms of volume and value were PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm Payments Bank App.

The top five remitter Banks were State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank, and ICICI Bank, whereas the top 5 beneficiary banks were Paytm Payments Bank, YES Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, and ICICI Bank.

UPI person-to-merchant (P2M) and person-to-person (P2P) emerged as the most chosen payment method among consumers, accounting for 42 per cent of total transaction volume.

This was followed by credit and debit card payments, which accounted for 7 per cent of volume and 14 per cent of value.

"The swift adoption of digital payments can be witnessed with each passing quarter. Popular payment instruments like UPI, cards, PPIs are already clocking over 23 billion transactions in a quarter," said Ramesh Narasimhan, CEO, India, Worldline.

Q3 data indicates healthy usage of credit cards and growth in the average ticket size.

For credit cards, it is Rs 4,833; for debit cards, it is Rs 2,073; for UPI P2M, it is Rs 738; for UPI, P2P it is 2,576; for prepaid cards, it is 473; and for M-wallet, it is Rs 382.

The total transaction between credit cards and debit cards comes to around 65 per cent and the remaining 35 per cent has been shared between UPI P2P, UPI P2M, and prepaid cards, the report showed.

As of September 2022, the overall number of POS terminals installed by merchant-acquiring banks had surpassed 7 million.

In Q3 2022, POS deployment increased by more than 41 per cent reaching 7.03 million, when compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

In the online space, e-commerce (shopping for goods and services), gaming, utility and financial services contributed to over 86 per cent of the transaction in terms of volume and 47 per cent in terms of value.

By the end of the third quarter, there were 1.01 billion credit and debit cards in circulation.

Credit card volume and value were 725 million and Rs 3.5 lakh crore in Q3 2022, respectively.

In the third quarter of 2022, the volume and value of debit card transactions were 907 million and Rs 1.88 lakh crore, respectively, the report said.

At least 58.78 million FASTags have been issued till September, with 36 banks.