Digital payments soar, UPI used for 52% transactions

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, January 31

Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the digital payment system that rides on smartphones and increased internet connectivity, has shown a quantum jump and is now a preferred mode of payment.

Rs 12.8 lakh crore worth of UPI transactions in Dec 2022, the highest-ever

The Economic Survey released today said “the progress of UPI has been remarkable”. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, UPI accounted for 52 per cent of the total 8,840 crore financial digital transactions. “In December 2022, UPI touched its highest-ever mark with Rs 12.8 lakh crore worth of transactions,” the survey said.

Just three years earlier — in the fiscal ending March 31, 2019 — UPI accounted for just 17 per cent of the country’s total 3,100 crore digital transactions. UPI was introduced in 2016. UPI works through a mobile application and 380 banks were part of it, as of December 2022. A large part of the success is due to telecommunication revolution. The country’s total telephone subscriber base is 117 crore (as of November 2022). Of these, 114.3 crore are connected wirelessly. About 83.7 crore persons have internet connection. The overall tele-density in India stood at 84.8 per cent. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Himachal, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had a tele-density of above 100 per cent.

More internet subscribers have been added in rural areas in the past three years (2019-21) than urban areas, said the survey adding that 9.5 crore and 9.2 crore internet subscribers were added in rural and urban areas, respectively.

The focus areas include the availability of high-speed internet as a core utility for delivery of services to citizens, unique digital identity, enabling citizen participation in digital and financial space.