Retail digital payments: Most modes grew in volumes

Most modes of retail digital payments grew in volumes between August and September, with credit and debit cards and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), or wallets, being the laggards, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

Most modes of retail digital payments grew in volumes between August and September, with credit and debit cards and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), or wallets, being the laggards, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Unified Payments Interface (UPI) grew the fastest on a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis in September in terms of volume of transactions. While the volume rose 85.4% over August to 30.8 million, the value of transactions on the channel grew 28% to Rs 5,293.48 crore in September. It was followed by Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) transactions, which rose 9.5% m-o-m to 82.85 million and the aggregate transaction value rose 10% to Rs 71,760 crore. The volume of transactions via the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) mode rose 2.3% m-o-m to 151.61 million in August, while the value of transactions increased 4% to Rs 12.5 lakh crore between July and August.

The volume of transactions made over the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel rose 5% to 0.2 million and the total value of transactions increased 10% to Rs 32.36 crore. The use of USSD, an SMS-based money transfer service, had been on a decline in the first few months of 2017, as cash came back into the system and the usage of the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app took off. BHIM is available for use on feature phones and, as such, competes directly with the USSD service.

PPIs, comprised mainly of mobile wallets and prepaid cards, saw a transaction volume of 240.29 million, down 8% from the August figure of 261.14 million. The value of transactions, however, rose 6.7% m-o-m to Rs 10,977 crore. This puts the average ticket size of a wallet transaction at about Rs 457, higher than Rs 394 in August. The volume of credit and debit card transactions at point-of-sale (PoS) machines fell 0.7% over the August level in volume terms to 377.93 million, while the value of transactions rose 3.3% to Rs 74,094 crore.

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