Retail digital payments in India witness 100-fold jump in 12 years

New Delhi:  Retail digital payments in India have grown from 162 crore transactions in the financial year 2012-13 to over 16,416 crore transactions in the financial year 2023-24 —- approximately 100-fold increase over 12 years, a new RBI report has revealed.

The remarkable growth in payment infrastructure and payment performance is also apparent in the Digital Payment Index published by RBI, which has witnessed more than four-fold rise in the last six years (445.50 for March 2024, base 100 as of March 2018), according to the Central Bank’s ‘Payment Systems Report.’

Overall digital payments in India have grown exponentially in the last decade.

“While in CY-2013, there were 222 crore digital transactions valued at Rs 772 lakh crore, it has increased 94 times in volume and more than 3.5 times in value to over 20,787 crore transactions valued at Rs 2,758 lakh crore in CY-2024,” the report emphasised.

In the last five years alone, digital payments in India have increased 6.7 times in volume and 1.6 times in value. This amounts to a five-year CAGR of 45.9 per cent in terms of digital payments volume and 10.2 per cent in terms of digital payments value.

From the nascent digital payment ecosystem, comprising mostly of traditional card based digital payments, it has transformed to an ecosystem offering a bouquet of digital payment options catering to every need of the Indian consumer – instant payment systems (UPI, IMPS), small value payment systems (PPI, UPI Lite), large value payment (RTGS), bill payment (BBPS), bulk payment (NACH), offline payment (UPI Lite X), government payments (NACH, APBS), toll payments (NETC) and many more.

The Reserve Bank is also focusing on interlinking the fast payment systems (FPS) with that of other countries to offer a seamless and less-costly cross-border payment experience.

Last year, the Unified Payments Interface of India (UPI) and PayNow of Singapore were interlinked through extensive collaboration between RBI and Monetary Authority of Singapore. Recent data shows that the cost of sending a remittance has come down noticeably, said the report.

—IANS