The Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been hell bent on pushing India towards a digital payments future. To that end, demonetisation was, by most accounts, an unmitigated disaster.
However one good that came out of it was UPI.
The Unified Payments Interface has brought online transactions to a huge number of people previously unable to access them. It provides each person with a unique identification number, allowing safe and authenticated transactions. Clearly it's been working too, based on statistics from the latest National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) report
According to the NPCI, the number of monthly UPI payments have steadily grown since it was introduced in August 2016. However, the largest jumps seem to have occurred in the second half of 2018. In just December there were approximately 620.17 million transactions worth a total of Rs 1,02,595 crore, the highest number ever since the technology's inception.
Also Read:?Now That 99.3% Demonetised Notes Are Back In The Banks, Where Is The Black Money?
Compared to that, November saw 524.94 million transactions worth Rs 82,232 crore, with 482.36 million transaction in October worth Rs 74,978 crore, and 405.87 transactions in September worth Rs 59,835 crore.
Compared to December 2017 with 145.463 million transactions, that's a whopping 326 percent rise in sheer numbers. Clearly, our home-grown payment interface is a roaring success.
Last year, the NPCI upgraded it to UPI 2.0 with additional features for EMI payments, mobile bills, and utility bills etc, without needing to fill out forms and registering beyond having a UIN and UPI PIN.