UPI beats debit, credit cards to become India’s most preferred payment mode

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) remained the most preferred mode of payment in terms of volume followed by debit cards, Immediate Payment Services (IMPS) and credit cards, said a new report on Thursday. UPI recorded a transaction volume of 10.8 billion in 2019, a year-over-year increase of 188 per cent, said the report from payments company Worldline India (WI).

"UPI is perhaps the fastest product to hit 1 billion transactions-a-month in 2019 since its inception in August 2016," said the "India Digital Payments Report 2019".

The findings of the report suggest that in India, digital payment products are being primarily utilised for person-to-person (P2P) transactions than person-to-merchants (P2M) transactions.

In terms of value, UPI facilitated transactions worth ₹18.36 trillion, up 214 per cent from 2018.

Nine banks were added in UPI ecosystem throughout the year, bringing the total number of banks providing UPI services to 143 as of December 2019.

Some of the key factors that powered UPI's transactions growth in 2019 are adoption of UPI 2.0 features by banks, enabling payments for IPO applications, facilitating Foreign Inward Remittance service, supporting donations for several relief programs, and numerous cashbacks and discounts offered by banks and non-bank players, said the report.

Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) recorded 55 per cent year-over-year increase by facilitating about 2.3 billion transactions in volume.

It clocked ₹21.8 trillion in terms of value, up 41 per cent from 2018.

In 2019, it on-boarded 165 banks under its ecosystem bringing the total number of banks providing IMPS services to the customers of 559 banks by end of 2019.

"In terms of value, IMPS attained the 'numero uno' position throughout the year followed by UPI. Value of debit and credit cards remained nearly the same throughout the year," said the report.

In 2019, UPI, debit cards, IMPS and credit cards together recorded a combined transactions volume of over 20 trillion and combined value of over ₹54 trillion, said the report.

The country has witnessed full range of Aadhaar enabled banking services through AePS over the past few years.

In 2019, the total volume of Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions (ONUS, OFFUS, DEMO AUTH and eKYC) stood at 2.3 billion, achieving year-over-year growth of 12 per cent. The value of transactions achieved a milestone of ₹1 trillion in 2019 with year-over-year growth of 31 per cent, said the report.

For the research, Worldline analysed transactions available in public databases as well as transactions processed by the company in 2019.

Worldline India (WI) is wholly owned by Worldline SA, a leading payments company in Europe that is listed on Euronext Paris. Worldline entered India in 2010 with the acquisition of Venture Infotek followed by the acquisition of MRL Posnet in 2017.