India’s Unified Payment System is becoming everyone’s favourite in the world. What is special is that the Indian payment system has also shattered China’s pride. In terms of transactions, the figure has reached close to one trillion dollars i.e. Rs 81 lakh crore in 5 months. On the other hand, the payment systems of China and Brazil do not even have this transaction data.
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which has emerged as the world’s most popular alternative payment system, processed transactions worth Rs 80.8 lakh crore or $964 billion in April-July 2024, compared to the same period last year, showing a growth of 37 per cent year-on-year. Let us also tell you what kind of UPI transaction figures have appeared across the world.
China and Brazil are left behind
According to global payments hub PaySure, UPI processed a staggering 3,729.1 transactions per second with 117.6 billion transactions on the platform in 2023, the highest in the world. UPI left behind global payment platforms like China’s Alipay, Paypal, and Brazil’s PIX in terms of the number of transactions. 3,729.1 transactions per second in the year 2023, which is 58 percent higher than the 2,348 transactions per second recorded in 2022. The value of transactions made on the platform during 2023 was $2.19 trillion.
read this too
Transactions on UPI in July this year stood at Rs 20.64 lakh crore or around $247 billion, which is the highest figure ever achieved by the platform in a single month. The value of transactions processed has remained above Rs 20 lakh crore for three consecutive months.
Most countries use some form of APM to work with central banks to create real-time payment options for customers. This has given a huge number of people the ability to make online payments and transfer money. The PaySure team recently looked at the top 40 alternative payment methods around the world to find out how many transactions they processed every second.
UPI Expansion and Future Prospects
Giving information, Pesicure said that in our report, the APM where maximum transactions were made was the Unified Payments Interface. India is a global leader in digital transactions, with over 40 per cent of payments made digitally and most of them using UPI.
Deepak Chand Thakur, Co-Founder and CEO of NPST, says in the media report that “We are adding more channels on UPI. Thus, the ability to transact across multiple platforms has increased.” He said that while UPI started as a simple transaction tool, they have now added credit cards, prepaid wallets, and prepaid vouchers to this ecosystem as well.
According to Thakur, out of 300 million users, UPI now has over 400 million users. Earlier, transactions were done only through bank accounts. But now interoperability has increased a lot. He says the increase in transaction channels has made UPI the most popular payment platform.
Rahul Jain, CFO, NTT Data Payments Services India, says that in the next 2-3 years, UPI growth will double both in value and volume. There is a reason for this too. The platform is continuously launching its new products. Nearly 300 million people who have smartphones are still not using UPI for making payments. So, the possibility is huge. The RuPay credit card (virtual credit card) and the recently launched credit line on UPI will further accelerate the growth.
APM worldwide
APM is a payment made without using any bank’s debit, credit or cash card. APM has gained a lot of popularity in the past few years due to its convenience without high fees. APM includes real-time payment options like UPI, Digital Wallet, Mobile Payment, Online Banking, Coupon-based Payment and Buy Now Pay Later.
According to the data, Skrill, a digital wallet used in over 100 countries, ranks second in the number of APM transactions in the world with 49 billion transactions in 2023 or 1,553.8 transactions per second. PIX, a UPI-like real-time payment system developed by Brazil’s central bank, ranked third with 42 billion transactions or 1,331.8 transactions per second. Popular Chinese digital wallet Alipay ranked fourth with 36.5 billion transactions or 1,157.4 transactions per second.
When did UPI start?
UPI is a real-time payment system developed by India’s Nation Payment Corporation that allows users to transfer funds instantly. It is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and has been in use since 2016. According to PaySure, almost every country uses some form of alternative payment, and many central banks are also creating their own real-time payment options to give more citizens the ability to make payments and transfer funds online.
