The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw a marginal growth in the total transaction volumes taking place between January 2019 and February 2019, 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 February 2019 were around 3.9 times higher than in the same month last year. The amount transacted declined by 3% to Rs 106,737.1 crores over January. The amount transacted in February 2019 was 5.6 times higher than in February 2018.
Some observations:
1. UPI transactions have been growing since launch except in May and July 2018. Growth has typically been driven by new launches and cashbacks: Google Tez launched on September 18, 2017, gave cashbacks, and reported 140 million transactions for the month of October and November 2017. Tez, now renamed Pay, claims to have 12 million users. The growth in October and December 2018 can’t be attributed to any particular service launch.
2. The number of transactions grew by 1.4 million in February whereas the total amount transacted went down by Rs 3,195.3 crores. In January 2019, volume had increased by 52.6 million and the amount transacted had grown by Rs 7,337.6 crores.
3. The average amount per transaction decreased marginally to Rs 1,583 for February 2019 with an increase in the number of transactions. It has been trending down, with an increase in the transaction numbers. The average amount per transaction has remained above the Rs 1,000 mark.
4. The number of banks on UPI jumped to 139 in February 2019.
