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Notwithstanding the economic slowdown, digital payment transactions continued to surge in September and crossed pre-Covid levels in categories like UPI, IMPS and FASTags.
According to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India on Thursday Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed the ₹3 lakh crore mark last month.
As many as 180 crore transactions amounting to ₹3.29 lakh crore took place on the UPI platform in September, 2020 as compared to the 161 crore transactions of total ₹2.98 lakh crore recorded in August, 2020. Apart from March and April this year, when transactions on the platform had taken a hit due to the Covid-induced national lockdown, payments through UPI have seen an almost continuous rise.
Transactions via the Immediate Payment Service (IPS) also touched an all-time high in September totaling 2.79 crore in number and ₹2.48 lakh crore in value. It had processed 24.61 crore transactions worth ₹2.35 lakh crore in August this year. IMPS’ performance in September crossed the all-time high in terms of number of transactions, which was recorded in January this year at 2.59 crore.
Payments through Bharat BillPay also soared to 2.31 crore in September amounting to ₹3,920.83 crore as comapred to over 2.12 crore transactions amounting to ₹3,782.47 crore in August. “Now you can pay for over 14 categories with over 1,000 recurring payments all at one place with convenience and assurance,” the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) tweeted.
In contrast, as many as 2.12 crore transactions were conducted using Bharat BillPay amounting to ₹3,782.47 crore in August.
FasTags sees recovery
With reopening up of the economy, transactions on FASTags also neared pre-Covid levels. In September, a total of 11 crore toll payments amounting to ₹1,940.6 crore took place through FASTags as against 9.68 crore transactions processing ₹1,712.58 crore in August.
The earlier peak was in February this year when 11 crore payments worth ₹1,841.22 crore were done through FASTags.
However, the Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS), which plays a key role in direct benefit transfers, recorded a declined in approved transactions to 29.82 crore in September as compared to 33.01 crore in August.
The value of payments also came down to ₹17,351.66 crore in September as against ₹19,812.28 crore recorded in the previous month.
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