Digital transactions cross 1 billion mark in line with year on year growth

Digital transactions in December reached a new peak in terms of volume since the government’s demonetisation exercise in November 2016.

Transactions through digital means rose 6.05% to 1.06 billion in December from 997.1 million in November, according to provisional data released late on Tuesday by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This is the first time that the transaction volume has crossed the 1 billion mark.

The overall value of these transactions was also the second highest in a month in the last one year. Transactions worth about Rs125.51 trillion were carried out in December through credit and debit cards, the unified payments interface (UPI), unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) and internet banking. The highest was in March at Rs149.59 trillion.

Exchanges crosswise over UPI once more achieved another crest in December. The exchange volume was 145.5 million, up around 40% from 104.8 million in the earlier month. The estimation of exchanges ascended around 36% to Rs131.4 billion in December from Rs96.4 billion in the earlier month. Over the most recent one year, the UPI exchange volume has ascended by over 7000%, as per RBI information. Last December (in 2016), just around 2 million exchanges were recorded.

UPI is an installments framework propelled by National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) that encourages moment support exchange between two ledgers on a versatile stage, without requiring any points of interest of the recipient's financial balance.

"UPI BHIM touches 145 million in December 2017. With all the activity happening, it should achieve 1 billion/month in December 2018," Infosys Ltd prime supporter and director Nandan Nilekani tweeted on Monday.

Exchanges through UPI got a noteworthy jolt from the administration after Prime Minister Narendra Modi propelled the Bhim (Bharat Interface for Money) application on 30 December 2016.

Up to this point, there have been more than 21.65 million downloads of the Bhim application on the Android stage and around 1.03 million downloads on the iOS stage. As per NPCI, around 9 million exchanges occurred on the Bhim application in December.

Utilization of PPIs, for example, versatile wallets topped as far as both volume and incentive amid December. The volume of PPI exchanges in December was 99.1 million as contrasted and 96.2 million in October. Rs35.1 billion worth of exchanges were recorded in December contrasted and Rs32.7billion in October. The temporary information considers exchanges of PPIs issued by eight non-bank backers for products and ventures exchanges as it were.

Charge and Mastercard utilization at purpose of-offer (PoS) machines rose both as far as esteem and volume. The volume of exchanges expanded by around 5% in December to 257.2 million exchanges from 244.6 million exchanges in the earlier month. The estimation of exchanges went up by 6.7% to Rs515.9 billion in December from Rs483.3 billion in the earlier month. Card exchanges of four banks have been considered by RBI.

Installments utilizing National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) expanded by around 4% and 1%, individually, in December from the former month.

The administration has been pushing to advance computerized instalments. A month ago, the legislature declared that the shipper rebate rate (MDR) relevant on exchanges made through charge cards, BHIM UPI and Aadhaar-empowered instalments framework (AEPS) up to and including an estimation of Rs2,000 will be borne by it for a time of two years with impact from 1 January. Such advances can be viewed as building pieces to satisfy the administration's mean to develop India's computerised economy to $1 trillion by 2022.