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Notwithstanding the national lockdown, digital payments rebounded in May, with transaction volumes in Unified Payments Interface (UPI), FASTag and BharatBill Pay exceeding March levels.
The Centre’s flagship BHIM UPI clocked 123 crore transactions last month, processing ₹2.18-lakh crore worth of payments. The transaction volume is the second highest ever, the highest being in February 2020, when BHIM UPI processed ₹2.22-lakh crore of payments.
In April, the number of transactions on the platform had fallen to 99 lakh, involving ₹1.51-lakh crore of payments.
Data released by the National Payments Corporation of India on Monday revealed that the number of transactions on Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) touched 16.68 crore in May, worth ₹1.69-lakh crore. This was a sharp jump from 12.24 crore transactions amounting to ₹1.21-lakh crore in April.
Similarly, with people mostly staying home, transactions on BharatBill Pay scaled a new high in May of 1.65 crore in terms of volume and ₹2,178.72 crore in value terms. In April, it registered 1.27 crore transactions involving ₹1,371.17 crore of payments. The number of active billers on BharatBill Pay surged to 216 in May from 190 in April.
Many schools and educational institutions are also being onboarded on the platform by banks now.
The NETC FASTag platform also saw a sharp growth in transactions last month despite the movement of only essential goods being allowed in several regions. As many as 5.5 crore transactions amounting to ₹1,142.34 crore were processed on the platform in May compared to just 1.02 crore transactions worth ₹247.58 crore the previous month.
Digital payment players have also been reporting a higher number of transactions in May. While some of it is due to pent-up demand, players have also reported that customers are stepping out lesser but purchasing in bigger quantities from home.
Additionally, last month, the Centre partially relaxed lockdown norms to permit the delivery of non-essential e-commerce as well. Further, with concerns of spread of Covid-19 through touch, many customers prefer contactless payment solutions to currency notes.
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