India’s Payments Transaction Volumes Grew 53% in 12 Months

The payments industry in India has seen massive growth over the past year, especially due to growth in digital transactions. The industry has grown at a CAGR of 42% in volume terms in the last five years. Growth in the last twelve months outpaced that in the last five years. As per Mr. P. Vasudhevan, Chief General Manager, Payment and Settlement Systems, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in the last 12 months, the growth rate has surged 53% in volume terms and 28% in value terms. Furthermore, 21.79 crore payments transactions were processed daily. The Real Time Gross Settlements (RTGS) was made operational 24x7x365. NACH and Bharat Bill Payment were enabled to settle on weekends. The number of settlements in a week has increased by 200, which has reduced credit and settlement risks in the ecosystem.

The government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) recorded 421 crore transactions in October 2021, and 418 crore transactions in November 2021. UPI payments had grown by 100% year-over-year in terms of value, reaching Rs. 7.7 lakh crore (US$ 102.3 billion) in October 2021. As per Mr. Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, digital payments had grown from 3,134 crore in FY2019 to 4,683 crore till mid-November 2021. The country had recorded 4,572 crore digital transactions in FY2020, which the government expected to grow to 5,554 crore in FY2021.