Setting a record, the volume of payments made via the unified payments interface (UPI) increased to 4.22 billion in October 2021, as compared to 3.66 billion transactions in September.
Overall, the transaction value in October 2021 also shot up to Rs 7.71 lakh crore from Rs 6.54 lakh crore in September. In dollar value, UPI crossed USD 100 billion monthly transactions for the first time with around USD 103 billion transaction value in October.
UPI transactions had comparatively dipped owing to the lockdown restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in April and May this year.
UPI is a mobile-based rapid payment system used in India that allows every user to make payments at any time using a Virtual Payment Address (VPA) that they generate. According to the RBI, this eliminates the risk of the remitter disclosing bank account information. UPI offers both P2P or Person to Person and P2M or Person to Merchant payments, as well as allowing users to send and receive money.
A report from the Motilal Oswal Financial Services stated that the market share of UPI has increased to 80 per cent in the initial four months of FY22 from 73 per cent in FY21.