UPI Records 100% Growth In January: Rs 4.2 Trillion Worth Of Transactions With 2.3 Billion Transactions

Online money transfer is becoming a norm with each passing day. The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is the most popular way of transferring money online and is preferred over internet banking because of the simplicity and convenience it offers. 

The usage of UPI is getting so normal that nearly 2.3 billion transactions involving Rs 4.2 trillion were recorded in the month of January in the new year. These record-breaking numbers were revealed by the CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant on Wednesday.

What Are The Statistics?

Kant went on to Twitter to express his amazement while announcing the records of the month of January.

Phenomenal ! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth ? 4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPIs transaction value jumped 76.5 % while transaction value jumped nearly 100%. Took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month. Next billion came in less than a year.

— Amitabh Kant (@amitabhk87) February 3, 2021

He also revealed that the value of UPI transactions leaped by 76.5% while the overall transaction value increased by 100%.

Why Has UPI Become So Popular?

We had earlier reported that UPI is growing enormously at the rate of 440% per year. It is expected to hold 59% of the share of the online money payment market by the year 2024-25. A couple of years ago, its market share was 17%.

The major reason for the popularity of UPI is that it is very handy. Even senior citizens can send money through their smartphones because UPIs are that simple to use. Besides, the transaction is completed in a fraction of a second irrespective of the bank to which the account belongs. 

UPI transactions got a push especially after demonetization when there was a shortage of cash. Now, the emergence of the pandemic has forced businesses and customers to adopt online payment mode. Since there is nothing better or more convenient than UPI, its popularity rose like never before.

Currently, Google pay is the most used medium to carry out UPI transactions. However, the indigenous alternative Phonepe is not far behind. As of October 2020, nearly 857.81 million transactions were made through Google Pay, and 839.88 million transactions were done through PhonePe. Both these apps together make up to 86% of the total UPI transactions. The other apps that support UPI are Paytm and Amazon Pay.