UPI transactions fall in November post October’s festive surge

Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions fell 0.71 percent in November after reaching new highs in October, owing to positive attitude during festivals and e-commerce sales.

UPI had 418 crore transactions in November, down from 421 crore in October. Transaction values fell by 0.4 percent to Rs 7.68 lakh crore, down from Rs 7.71 lakh crore the previous month.

UPI’s five-month stretch of continuous month-on-month growth has come to an end. The most recent drop occurred in May 2021, during the second wave of Covid-19.

Despite the drop, the month’s transaction values of Rs 7.68 lakh crore remain higher than the record $100 billion (Rs 7.49 lakh crore) level reached by the payments system for the first time last month.

Following May, UPI transaction values reached new highs each month, surpassing the Rs 6 lakh crore mark in July and the Rs 7 lakh crore mark in October.

However, overall digital transactions in India across all payment modalities continue to rise. It was reported that Digital transactions are estimated to reach 7,000 crore in FY21, shattering the previous high of 4573 crore in FY20.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recently raised the quota for Meta (formerly Facebook-owned WhatsApp) to 40 million users on its UPI network in November, up from 20 million previously. Moneycontrol was the first to report that NPCI will gradually raise the cap.

The app-level data for November and December will be crucial in determining how this has affected WhatsApp’s proportion of overall UPI payments.

Manesh Mahatme, Director-Payments at WhatsApp India, commented on the increase in user base, saying, “Over the next 6 months, we have planned significant investments in payments on WhatsApp across India, including many more India-first innovations that we are confident will accelerate our growth.”

PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm Payments Bank are the market leaders in UPI, accounting for 45 percent, 37 percent, and 10 percent of monthly transaction values, respectively.

Source: Moneycontrol