Transactions through the Unified Payments Interface neared the ₹3-lakh-crore-mark in terms of volume in August, and along with AePS, IMPS, Bharat BillPay, set a new record with robust growth.

Data released by the National Payments Corporation of India, on Tuesday, revealed that as many as 161 crore transactions involving ₹2.98 lakh crore took place on the BHIM UPI platform in August last year. This is a new peak from 149 crore transactions totalling ₹2.9 lakh crore in July this year.

“BHIM UPI has been pivotal in pushing the boundaries of digital payment acceptance in India by penetrating the ground level users with safe P2P and P2M fund transfers,” NPCI said in a tweet.

UPI has become the preferred choice for many consumers due to the focus on contactless payments in the ongoing pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS), which plays a key role in direct benefit transfers, processed payments worth ₹19,812.28 crore in August compared to ₹17,729.31 crore in July. In terms of the number of transactions, AePS processed 33 crore transactions in August versus 32.8 crore in July.

The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) also scaled a new high in August, processing 24.61 crore transactions worth ₹2.35-lakh crore. This was marginally higher than July’s 22.2 crore transactions involving ₹2.25-lakh crore.

With people continuing to stay at home and practicing social distancing, as many as 2.12 crore transactions were conducted using Bharat BillPay amounting to ₹3,782.47 crore in August. In contrast, July recorded 2.01 crore transaction on the platform amounting to ₹3,707.44 crore.

The gradual opening of the economy also led to traction in transactions through NETC FASTags in August. As many as 9.68 crore transactions amounting to ₹1,712.58 crore took place through FASTags in August, compared to 8.66 crore transactions worth ₹1,623.30 crore in July.

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