Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw a marginal decrease of 0.3% in the total transaction volumes between December 2019 and January 2020, according to data published by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). For the same period, the amount transacted went up by 6.8%. NPCI is a private company owned by Indian banks; it owns and operates important payments systems such as UPI and IMPS. The total number of transactions in January 2020 was around 1.94 times higher than in the same month last year. The amount transacted went up to Rs 2,16,242.9 crore. The amount transacted in January 2020 was also 1.97 times the amount in January 2019. However, given the limited impact of seasonality on digital payments, and the fact that this is supposed to be a high growth sector, month-on-month data needs to be looked at. Some observations 1. Although the amount transacted has been on increase, the number of transactions declined marginally in January 2020. 2. The number of transactions declined 3.4 million in January, whereas the total amount transacted went up by Rs 13,722 crores. In the previous month (December 2019), volume had increased by 89.6 million and the amount transacted had grown by Rs 13,291.7 crores. 3. The average amount per transaction increased to Rs 1,657 for January 2020 with an increase in the amount transacted. The average has been trending down since May 2019, but it has remained above the Rs 1,500 mark for the last 12 months. 4. The number of banks…
