India saw a stunning surge in mobile-driven payments in the second half of 2024 with the number of transactions increasing 41% to 88.54 billion and the value increasing 30% to ₹197.69 lakh crore, as per Worldline India's new Digital Payments Report 2H 2024.
This pick-up is a testament to the further fortification of the nation's digital payment ecosystem, driven by fast-paced adoption of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), mobile wallets, and card payments.
One of the driving factors behind the growth was the massive rise in UPI-supported QR code transactions. As of the end of December 2024, outstanding QR codes rose to 63.34 crore. Concurrently, Point of Sale (PoS) terminals increased by 23% and reached a number of 10 million.
UPI payments showed strong performance in both person-to-merchant (P2M) and person-to-person (P2P) segments. P2P transactions rose by 30%, from 27.04 billion in the second half of 2023 to 35.21 billion in the second half of 2024. The total transaction value for this segment increased by 26% to ₹93.84 lakh crore.
P2M transactions also showed more spectacular growth, with volumes growing 50% to 58.03 billion and their value growing 43% to ₹36.35 lakh crore.
Card payments also helped fuel the expanding digital economy. Card-based transactions overall grew 11% to 4.1 billion in H2 2024. The growth was primarily driven by a 36% increase in credit card usage, which represented 2.42 billion transactions.
Conversely, debit card activity saw a decline, dropping 29% to 0.82 billion transactions. Prepaid card usage showed moderate growth, with an 11% rise to 0.86 billion transactions.
The total monetary value of card payments rose by 8% to ₹13.64 lakh crore, with credit cards alone accounting for ₹10.76 lakh crore — a 14% increase compared to the same timeframe in 2023.
Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems too saw strong growth. As of the end of 2024, 103.1 million FASTag devices were issued — up 26% year-on-year. The number of ETC transactions stood at 9% higher at 2.05 billion, while the value of transactions increased by 12% to ₹35,637 crore.
India's payment acceptance infrastructure has maintained its growth momentum, with PoS terminals crossing the 10 million milestone and UPI QR code deployment increasing by an enormous 126% to 633.44 million. Private banks have particularly led the charge in deploying PoS infrastructure, with 82.2% of the market share.
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