The latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed a noticeable decline in the share of prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), while there was a massive surge in the share of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions in the entire digital payment ecosystem.
In value terms, the share of PPIs declined from ₹1.43 lakh crore in H2 2019 to 1.08 lakh crore in H2 2024, a massive fall of 24 per cent in a span of just two years, reveals the latest RBI data.
In the past one year alone, the share of prepaid payment instruments declined from ₹1.46 lakh crore (in H2 2023) to ₹1.08 lakh crore, reporting a fall of 26 per cent.
Volume terms
When the same data is evaluated in volume terms, the share of PPIs has fallen from 39,336 lakh to 34,503 lakh, reporting a drop of 12.28 per cent in the past one year.
In the past two years, however, the PPI share has declined from 37,018 lakh to 34,503 lakh, reflecting a fall of 6.7 per cent.
Surge in UPI
As the saying goes, someone’s loss is someone else’s gain. While the share of PPI has declined, the ratio of transactions carried out via UPI has seen a rise. As the table below shows, the value of UPI transactions jumped from ₹21 trillion in H2 2021 to ₹130 trillion in H2 2024, reflecting a spike of 519 per cent.
In the past two years (H2 to H2), UPI transactions (in value terms) showed a rise of 88 per cent whereas it increased from ₹69 trillion to ₹130 trillion. In the past one year, the rise led to a 31 per cent hike.
Notably, the RBI recently allowed the users of PPIs to access UPI services via third party applications. This was seen as a move to give a boost to the digital payment ecosystem in India.
