100 billion and counting: UPI transactions crossed major milestone in 2023

In a significant achievement, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has surpassed the milestone of processing over 100 billion transactions, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), as reported by the Economic Times.

NPCI, the operator of the UPI service and other payment processing infrastructure, disclosed that in December 2023, UPI payments in India reached 12.02 billion transactions, processing payments totalling Rs 18.23 lakh crore during the month. This signifies a remarkable 54 per cent year-on-year growth in transaction volume and a 42 per cent increase in transaction value annually.

The total transactions facilitated by UPI in the year 2023 amounted to 117.6 billion. Additionally, data reveals that the UPI rails saw a total value of just over Rs 182 lakh crore processed through the payments infrastructure in the previous year.

This staggering growth in UPI payments reflects a remarkable increase from approximately 74 billion transactions in 2022 and 38.7 billion transactions in 2021.

Moreover, monthly transactions on UPI experienced a significant surge of over 49 per cent throughout the year, from January to December, as indicated by NPCI data.

A previous report by ET highlighted the rising popularity of UPI Autopay, the recurring payment mandate managed by the National Payments Corporation of India on the UPI payment mode. This feature has gained traction, particularly for bill and subscription payments in the country.

The increasing adoption of UPI Autopay can be attributed to the expanding range of use cases, including mutual fund payments, insurance premiums, and credit card bill payments. Furthermore, recent adjustments to transaction limits, raised to Rs 1 lakh from the previous Rs 15,000, have contributed to the growth of the UPI Autopay feature in terms of both volume and value.

(With inputs from agencies)