UPI transactions cross 10 million mark in June, says NPCI

New Delhi: Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed the 10 million transaction mark in June, said National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) in a statement on Monday.

UPI is a payment system launched by NPCI which facilitates instant fund transfer between two bank accounts on the mobile platform.

“Transactions on UPI are growing exponentially due to increased acceptance among member banks, merchants and consumers. Usage of UPI powered BHIM App (Bharat Interface for Money) has also been a significant contributor. Our current focus is on the release of next version of BHIM App with enhanced functionalities,” said A.P. Hota, managing director and chief executive officer of NPCI, in the statement.

BHIM was launched on 30 December by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as one of several measures aimed at promoting digital transactions after the 8 November demonetisation exercise, which triggered a nationwide cash crunch.

“The transaction volume has risen to 10 million in just 11 months from less than one million in August 2016. UPI volume (UPI, BHIM and USSD 2.0 - *99#) during last three months were 7.20 million, 9.36 million and 10.35 million in April, May and June 2017 respectively,” said the statement.

USSD is unstructured supplementary service data or *99# service. It gives one access to one’s bank account and helps perform some transactions by connecting to both the telecom operator and the bank server. It can be used to make offline UPI transactions.

UPI merchant base is growing at a rapid pace. Out of the total UPI transaction volume, about 22% is merchant based, added the statement.

UPI was launched in August 2016 with 21 banks, and is currently being offered by about 50 banks.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.