The COVID-19 pandemic shut businesses and restricted people from normal activity for several months in 2020. But in the wake of the lockdown, digital payments adoption grew significantly particularly from the second half of the year. In particular, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has seen transaction volumes double in a matter of a few months between April and September. According to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), released last week, UPI recorded 2.23 billion transactions worth over ₹4.16 lakh crore as of December 2020, up by 105% from last year. In 2020, there were a total of ₹33.87 lakh crore transactions on the UPI platform. Bharat Bill Payments System doubles in value Similarly, transactions on the Bharat Bill Payments System (BBPS), another NPCI-owned payments rail, doubled in the last year. In December 2020, there were over 26 million transactions worth a little over ₹3,962 crore compared to 14 million transactions worth ₹1,970 crore in same month of the previous year. A total of ₹35,466.5 crore transactions took place on BBPS during the last year. Aadhaar Payments System close to historic high The central government has been using the Aadhaar-enabled Payments System (AEPS) to transfer welfare benefits to citizens across the country dealing with the hardships of the lockdown. This led to a massive boost to transactions flowing through AEPS between April and June this year. In December, there were 72.5 million transactions worth ₹19,919 crore, around 104% higher than in the previous year. A little over ₹1.98…
