Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw an increase of 8.3% in the total transaction volumes between May and June 2020, according to data published by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). For the same period, the amount transacted went up by 20%. 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 June 2020 was around 1.8 times higher than in the same month last year. The total amount transacted during the month stood at Rs 2,61,835 crore, up 1.79 times year-on-year. The steep increases follow a major slump in both metrics in April, which was likely due to a nationwide lockdown that was imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Some observations: 1. The number of transactions and amount transacted both increased significantly this month. Therefore, a hike in the average amount per day can be seen for June. 2. The number of transactions increased by 102.4 million in June, whereas the total amount transacted went up by Rs 43,443.4 crores. In the previous month (May 2020), volume had increased by 234.9 million and the amount transacted grew by Rs 67,250.9 crores. 3. The average amount per transaction increased to Rs 1,958 for June 2020. The average had been trending up since November 2019 but saw a dip in April, and a minor dip in March. 4. The number of banks on UPI remained stagnant in June 2020.
