UPI transactions value crosses record $100 billion in October, on track to end FY22 at over $1 trillion

(Representative image)

The National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed one more milestone in October, with the value of transactions for the month crossing $100 billion.

In rupee terms, the value of transactions stands at Rs 7.71 lakh crore and 421 crore transactions were executed in the month, both at all-time highs.

The growth in October was fueled by the shopping spree marking the beginning of the festival season and e-commerce sales. With higher vaccination rates and further relaxation of norms, people also started stepping out for purchases more often in October.

From March to September 2021, the average monthly growth rate of UPI transactions was 5.8 percent. However, month-on-month growth in transaction values in October was close to 18 percent. At this rate, UPI transaction values are on track to cross $1 trillion, a huge milestone for the home-grown payments system, for FY22.

Since the beginning of 2021, monthly transaction values have grown by close to 79 percent from Rs 4.31 lakh crore in January. Volumes have seen a jump of over 83 percent from January’s 230 crore.

While it took over four years since the launch of UPI in 2016 for monthly transaction values to cross the Rs 3.86 lakh crore mark in October 2020, the number almost than doubled to cross Rs 7 lakh crore this month.

Speaking at the Global Fintech Fest on September 29, NPCI MD and CEO Dilip Asbe had said that UPI would constitute close to 60 percent of overall NPCI transaction volumes in 2021.

He had added that at the current pace, UPI can cross transactions worth $1 trillion a day in five years’ time but that efforts can be doubled up to achieve the milestone in just three more years.​