New Delhi, October 11 (IANS). Payments made in the country through the instant payment system Unified Payment Interface i.e. UPI have registered an increase of 52 percent on an annual basis in the first six months of the year. In the first half of 2024, digital payments in the country will increase to Rs 78.97 billion annually. Payment technology service provider organization ‘Worldline’ gave this information in one of its reports on Thursday.
After the introduction of UPI in 2016, India remains the king in digital payments in the world. However, UPI did not achieve much success in the beginning. But, the closure during the Corona epidemic increased it manifold. Studying the official data of the Government of India shows that only 36 percent of payments in the country were made through UPI in the financial year 2016-2017. This payment rate reached 63 percent by the end of 2021. This clearly shows that there has been a huge increase in UPI payments in 5 years.
The report states that in the first half of the year 2023, the amount of transactions through UPI increased from 51.9 billion to 78.97 billion. The value of transactions through UPI has increased by 40 percent during this period.
In India, many apps like Phone Pay, Paytm and Google Pay, BHIM are the apps available for this payment method. People use UPI through these apps only. Three UPI apps are leading in terms of volume and value in India. Among these, the numbers of Phone Pay, Google Pay and Paytm come sequentially. Till the month of June this year, 94.83 percent of the total was through these three apps.
Additionally, UPI QR has seen a significant growth of 39 percent from 244.23 million to 340 million during the same period.
According to Indian Government data, the total transactions through UPI in the period April-July this year were Rs 81 lakh crore. This transaction is the highest in the world. In this transaction, an increase of about 37 percent was recorded as compared to 2023.
According to the data, every second a transaction of Rs 3,729.1 is done through UPI in India. This figure was Rs 2,348 per second by 2022. In such a situation, an increase of 58 percent has been recorded in UPI.
Talking about the growth in UPI, renowned economist Akash Jindal says, “UPI is a success story for India. It is becoming increasingly popular in the country and the world. The biggest reason for this is its simple interface. It is so simple that every person is able to use it. It is not that only a person who is an expert in technology or IT will be able to use it. The biggest thing is that today if any common man in the entire country takes anything worth even one rupee, he pays through UPI. The biggest reason behind this is its simple interface. This is the biggest reason for the advancement of this technology in the country. Remember, when demonetization took place in 2016, serious consideration was being given to how to make India cashless. There were many psychological barriers to this work at that time. The biggest question at that time was whether small shopkeepers, street vendors or rickshaw pullers would be able to understand this technology? To adopt this technology, where will those people get laptops from, where will they charge their devices? There were many such questions. Through its efforts, the government has made it clear that nothing separate is required for this, just a mobile phone is required. It is easy to use, easy to understand and easy to adopt.”
He further says, “India would become the largest country in the world in digital payments by 2022. Since then India is number one in this field in the world. There are many benefits of UPI payments. Due to this, less notes are used, hence the cost of printing the notes is saved. Also, it helps a lot in controlling black money. All these transactions are monitored and recorded. This prevents tax evasion. India is the world’s fifth largest economy, and is on its way to becoming the third largest economy. UPI is very important for this journey of India. No one will be able to challenge India in this field for the next several decades. India is a big exporter to America in the IT sector. BPO supplies. The whole world recognizes India’s strength in the technical field.”
–IANS
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