The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw an increase of 30% in the total transaction volumes taking place between May 2017 and June 2018, according to data published by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The NPCI is a private company owned by Indian banks and owns and operates payments systems such as UPI and IMPS. The total number of transactions in June 2018 were around 23.8 times higher than in the same month last year. The amount transacted increased by 23% to Rs 40,834 crores over May. The amount transacted in May 2018 was 13 times higher than in the corresponding month last year. Some observations: 1. UPI transactions have been growing since launch, except last month. Growth has typically been driven by new launches and cashbacks: Google Tez launched on September 18, 2017, gave cashbacks, and had reported 140 million transactions for the month of October and November since launch, apart from 12 million users. 2. The number of transactions grew by 56.9 million in May 2018 whereas the total amount transacted increased by Rs 7,545.5 crores. In May 2018, volume had decreased for the first time by 0.6 million and amount transacted had grown by Rs 6,266.7 crores. 3. The average amount per transaction declined to Rs 1,657 for April 2018 with the increase in volume. It has been trending up, with an increase in the number of transactions. It has remained above of Rs 900 mark. 4. The number of banks on UPI increased to 110…
