UPI dominates India’s digital payment landscape; Transactions surge by 73% in 18 months

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has continued to dominate the payment system in the country with transactions rising from 8.03 billion in January 2023 to 13.9 billion by June 2024. According to a report by Worldline India, the UPI transaction volume jumped from Rs 12.98 trillion in January 2023 to Rs 20.07 trillion in June 2024.

Between January and June 2023, the value of UPI transactions grew by 40 percent, increasing from Rs 83.16 trillion to Rs 116.63 trillion.

The Worldline India report underscored that the UPI QRs scaled by 38 percent, surging to 340 million from 244.23 million between January 2023 and June 2024.

Flipkart-owned PhonePe app dominated the UPI landscape. PhonePe accounted for 49.28 percent of all UPI transaction volume as of June 2024, followed by Google Pay at 37.45 percent and Paytm at 8.11 percent.

In terms of transaction value, all three UPI apps represented 92.21 percent in June 2024, compared to 93.65 percent in the same month the previous year.

The average ticket size of all UPI transactions dropped by 8 percent to Rs 1,478 in the 1H 2024 from Rs 1,603 crore in the same period last year.

However, the average ticket size for person-to-person transactions increased from Rs 2,812 to Rs 2,836.

"We are confident that as India continues to embrace digital. Payments, the benefits will extend far beyond convenience, driving greater economic participation, financial inclusion, and overall growth," Ramesh Narasimhan, Chief Executive Officer at Worldline India said.

'Credit, debit and prepaid card'

The debit card transaction witnessed a 33 percent decline to 0.92 billion in 1H 2024 from 1.37 billion in 1H 2023. In contrast, the prepaid card transactions grew to 0.77 billion, reflecting an 8 percent rise.

The credit card transaction rose 32 percent to 2.04 billion between January and June 2024 from 1.55 billion in the same period last year, Wordline India mentioned in its report.

As per the report, HDFC, SBI, ICICI, Axis and Kotak banks were the leading issuers of credit cards. Private banks issued 71 percent of credit cards as compared to 24 percent from public sector banks in the first half of 2024.

'Mobile payment'

Mobile payment has witnessed substantial growth, driven by UPI applications in the first half of the current calendar year. The value of mobile transactions surged to Rs 179.41 trillion in 1H 2024 compared to Rs 132.40 trillion in 1H 2023.