National Deworming Day

The UPI Person-to-Merchant (P2M) and Person-to-Person (P2P) are the most preferred payment modes among consumers with a market share of 40 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively, in terms of transaction volume (UPI was 84 per cent in total).

According to official figures, between 2019-20 and 2022-23, the volume of digital transactions rose from Rs 4,572 crore to Rs 12,735 crore, showing a rise of 178 per cent in just three years. Also, BHIM-UPI has emerged as the preferred payment mode and has achieved a record of 753.48 crore digital payment transactions with the value of Rs 12.36 lakh crore in February 2023 alone, sources added.

For promotion of digital payments, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has introduced the Incentive Scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit Cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions for the current financial year. This was stated by Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

People using UPI-based services faced trouble with sending and receiving payments on New Year Eve. Taking to the micro-blogging platform Twitter, several users reported the issue. While one user asked, "Is it only me facing UPI payment errors?", another said, "UPI payments down....last 1hour not working.According to downdetector.com, a website that monitors online outages, 53 per cent of people reported the issue with their UPI application, 37 per cent complained of issue during payments and 11 per cent reported that they faced trouble with funds transfer.

There was a growth of 25 per cent and 14 per cent in value and volume, respectively, in assisted financial transactions across semi-urban and rural retail counters in the country in 2022, according to the report by branchless banking and digital network PayNearby. While there was a 25 per cent increase in the demand for micro-ATMs and mPOS instruments, the EMI collections for financial institutions and NBFCs saw a steep growth of over 200 per cent.

Soon users may not be able to make unlimited payments via UPI payment apps. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the UPI digital pipeline, is in discussions with the Reserve Bank about implementing its proposed December 31 deadline for limiting player volume to 30 per cent.

"UPI has been a game changer in real-time payments and is the most preferred choice of payment. UPI platform recorded 6.8 billion transactions in September 2022 and the festive month gave further boost with transactions reaching 7.3 billion in October," said Sanjeev Chandak, Co-founder and CEO of fintech platform ftcash.

After meeting Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Washington on Saturday, representatives of several Indian companies said that many countries aim to learn from initiatives like UPI and RuPay. C.T. Lakshmanan, President of Tech Mahindra Americas, said that the discussions with Sitharaman were 'amazing'.