UPI remained the most preferred mode of payment in terms of volume in 2019: Report
By Unified Payments Interface became the fastest product to hit 1 billion transactions-a-month in 2019.
Worldline India has released its annual report on India Digital Payments 2019. The report is an analysis of transactions processed by Worldline. It also uses public databases to derive unique insights into the state of digital payments in India. The report particularly looks at Digital Payments Landscape, Merchant Acquiring, Card Issuance, Unified Payments Interface, National Electronic Toll Collection, Bharat BillPay and Aadhaar Enabled Payment System.
“It is evident that payment systems in India have witnessed significant progress in the previous year and more importantly, the last decade,” said Deepak Chandnani, Managing Director, Worldline South Asia & Middle East. “The surge in card transactions and other products like UPI, IMPS, NETC etc. and the rise in number of POS terminals over the past few months have been encouraging. This annual report takes a look and provides insights on Indian digital transactions in 2019 as well as insights on transactions that were processed in our network,” he added.
The report highlights the primary channels to pay digitally for goods and services at physical merchant locations is through either a POS terminal or a QR code. In the case of QR code, it is usually a printed one but a phone is also used in some cases. Worldline thinks the “emergence and establishment of asset-lite technologies in merchant acquiring” will be the game changer in the coming months. The key highlight is the fact that Indian consumers are gradually moving from paying “in-line” to paying “online” with each passing year.
There has been an increase in adoption of traditional as well as new retail payment products like debit cards, credit cards, immediate payment services (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) among others. “In 2019, these four products recorded a combined transactions volume of over 20 trillion and combined value of over Rs 54 trillion,” the report notes. Among these methods, UPI remained the most preferred mode of payment in terms of volume. It was followed by debit cards, IMPS and credit cards.
The number of POS terminals deployed by merchant acquiring banks increased to 4.98 million in December 2019. The number was 3.59 million in December 2018, which means a YoY increase of 39 percent. “RBL bank, HDFC bank, State Bank of India, Axis bank and ICICI bank emerged as top 5 merchant acquiring banks to deploy POS terminals in 2019,” the report further explains.
Worldline India saw October 2019 as the month with the highest number of transactions in volume and value. Maharashtra leads Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and AP in terms of transactions in 2019. The total number of cards in circulation stood at 860.65 million as of December 2019, the report further notes. UPI, in particular, became the fastest product to hit 1 billion transactions-a-month in 2019. Bharat Bill Payment Central Unit (BBPCU) – NPCI stood at 125.5 million, according to Worldline. The total volume of Aadhaar enabled banking services through AePS stood at 2.3 billion in 2019.
