India’s UPI sets new record with over 7 billion transactions in October

India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform enjoyed unprecedented success during the festive season as it processed 7.3 billion transactions, setting a new high in five years since its inception.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) reports that in October, UPI handled over 7.3 billion transactions totalling INR 12.11 trillion. The value of transactions increased by 57% while the volume increased by 73% (year-over-year).

“UPI has been a game changer in real-time payments and is the most preferred choice of payment. UPI platform recorded 6.8 billion transactions in September 2022 and the festive month gave further boost with transactions reaching 7.3 billion in October,” said Sanjeev Chandak, Co-founder and CEO of fintech platform ftcash.

“Digitisation is enabling India to become a cashless economy and the surge in UPI transactions mirrors this upward trajectory towards digitisation,” he added.

UPI is India’s flagship digital payments platform which was introduced in 2016. It had previously reached 1 billion transactions in October 2019. UPI has handled 44.32 billion transactions totalling 75 trillion rupees so far in FY23.

Industry insiders claim that the pandemic significantly sped up the adoption of UPI in the nation, to the point where it is now the platform of choice for the majority of people. Data reveals that UPI transactions have increased by 488% since the outbreak started.

According to a study by FIS, a provider of financial services technology, approximately 76% of Indian consumers prefer utilising UPI at the point of sale when shopping online. Indians prefer to shop for fashion items like apparel, shoes, and accessories via social media applications about 78% of the time, and 70% would do the same for groceries.

PhonePe and Google Pay each had a 34 percent share of the universal payments interfaces (UPI) market in India during the fiscal year 2022, according to Statista.