The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) saw an extensive growth of 191% in the total transaction volume, taking its number to 10,788 million in 2019 from 3,708 million in 2018, according to data published by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). In addition, December 2019 alone accounted for 12% (1.31 billion) of all transactions. The NPCI is a private company owned by Indian banks, and owns and operates payments systems such as the UPI and IMPS. The total number of transactions in 2019 was around 1.9 times higher than the previous year’s 3,708 million transactions. The amount transacted increased by 217% to Rs 18,36,638 crores annually, 2 times higher than in 2018. On a monthly basis, UPI transaction volumes increased to 1,308 million, up 7.4% from 1,219 million transactions taking place between November and December 2019, while the amount transacted increased to Rs 202,521 crore – the highest in this month. The average transaction amount declined to Rs 1,548 per transaction. Some observations: 1. UPI transactions have been growing. Growth has typically been driven by new launches and cashbacks: Google Pay launched on September 18, 2017, gave cashbacks, and reported 240 million transactions, Flipkart-owned PhonePe reported around 230 million, and Alibaba owned Paytm reported 200 million in transactions in May 2019. 2. The number of transactions grew by 7,079.3 million in 2019, whereas the total amount transacted increased by Rs 12,56,925.23 crores. 3. The average amount per transaction went up Rs 1,702 for the year 2019 with an increase in amount…
