Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said payments through UPI (unified payment interface) have grown exponentially in the past 12 months with daily transactions crossing 36 crore, which is up 50 per cent from 24 crore in February 2022.
In value terms, these transactions are worth Rs 6.27 lakh crore, registering a growth of 17 per cent from Rs 5.36 lakh crore in February 2022, the governor told reporters while launching the Digital Payments Awareness Week at the RBI headquarters here this afternoon.
He also said the overall monthly digital payment transactions crossed over Rs 1,000-crore-mark each month during the past three months.
"Our payment systems are talked about globally and several countries have shown interest to replicate our success story. It is a matter of pride that our payment systems have witnessed over 1,000 crore transactions every month since December 2022. This speaks volumes of the robustness of our payments ecosystem and acceptance by consumers. A recent pan-India digital payments survey (covering 90,000 respondents) revealed that 42 per cent of respondents have used digital payments," Das said.
In terms of volume, the number of UPI transactions exceeded 800 crore in January 2023, while NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) witnessed the highest ever daily volume of 3.18 crore transactions on February 28.
The UPI was launched in 2016, and since then it has emerged as the most popular and preferred payment mode pioneering person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions accounting for 75 per cent of the total digital payments.
The volume of UPI transactions has increased manifold from 0.45 crore in January 2017 to 804 crore in January 2023. The value of UPI transactions has increased from just Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 12.98 lakh crore during the same period.
On tokenisation exercise, he said the RBI has created over 48 crore card tokens, which have processed over 86 crore transactions, making it the world's biggest tokenisation exercise. Tokenised transactions have increased from 35 per cent initially to 62 per cent of the ecosystem.
The customer friendly recurring mandate framework has helped increase the number of e-mandates which were around 2-3 crore earlier or worth Rs 130 crore, to around 15 crore or worth Rs 1,700 crore now.
Acceptance of digital payments infrastructure has increased from 17 crore touch points to 26 crore touch points, which is an increase of 53 per cent.
The governor also launched 'Har payment digital' mission which seeks to reinforce RBI's commitment to deepen digital payments in the country.
While the UPI has facilitated digital payments to retail outlets, kiranas, street vendors etc, the Bharat bill payment system (BBPS) has ensured migration of bill payments from cash/cheques to digital mode and the national electronic toll collection (NETC) system has helped in migration of the toll payments to digital mode with enhancing efficiency in terms of reduced waiting time at toll plazas, the governor said.
The national automated clearing house (NACH) system has also facilitated the direct benefit transfers (DBT) payments digitally and eliminating leakages in the system.
Das further said the RBI has decided to adopt 75 villages by involving village-level entrepreneurs as part of the 75 digital villages programme. Under this programme, PSOs will adopt 75 villages and convert them into digital payment enabled villages.
Addressing the same event, which also marks the 18th year of the Department of Payments Settlement Systems at the RBI, deputy governor Rabi Sankar who heads the department, said over the past five years the digital payments have grown 15 per cent annually.
Financial formalisation of the economy is a must as money is at the core of any economy, Sankar said, adding the digital vision 2025 of the RBI (when the department turns 20 years) is to ensure digital payments by everyone, everywhere and every time.
Allcargo has also decided to sell its non-core customs clearance business by divesting its 61.13 per cent stake for an enterprise value of Rs 42 crore.
With the acquisition, Allcargo will take its stake to 100 per cent in the contract logistics business and create an effective synergy between contract logistics and express distribution.
The acquisition price is based on the agreement that was signed with ACCI in 2016 and with growth in this business over the years, the company said in a statement.
The acquisition offers management control and facilitates strategic decision-making for the business. This will also help us enhance service delivery capabilities to drive growth.
The business has witnessed robust growth over the years diversifying into several new industry segments. With full ownership we also expect more synergies between our contract logistics and express distribution, Shashi Kiran Shetty, the founder & chairman of the Allcargo group said.
Allcargo's contract logistics business is engaged in managing inventories and providing third-party supply chain solutions to domestic and international customers across chemicals, auto, e-commerce and other industries.
The business has a total space of over 5 million square feet under its management and reported a pre-tax profit of Rs 31 crore for the December quarter, he said.
He also said the impending acquisition of KWE's stake in Gati will enable closer collaboration between the two businesses thus enabling them to be in a better position to leverage each other's strength with Allcargo buying out entire stakes of partners in both businesses.
The company's board also approved the sale of the smaller non-core customs clearance business of the group. Accordingly, Allcargo will divest its 61.13 per cent stake for an enterprise value of Rs 42 crore.
On this sale, Shetty said this is part of exiting non-core businesses to consolidate core businesses.
Post-demerger of Allcargo Terminals and TransIndia, which has already received NCLT approval, the company shall now have two distinct business segments under international supply chain and express and contract logistics.
Allcargo Logistics is a global leader in multimodal logistics solutions and its wholly-owned subsidiary Allcargo Belgium, which operates ECU Worldwide network is a global leader in ocean freight consolidation.
Domestically, Allcargo is the market leader in the container freight station business and is among the leaders in express logistics through its subsidiary Gati. It currently operates over 300 offices serving 180 countries.
Allcargo Logistics shares closed higher by 1.15 per cent at Rs 374.45 on BSE on Monday.
