UPI transactions cross 300 million mark in August

The umbrella organisation for retail payments in the country, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) has reported that the total number of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) transactions in the country stood at 312 million in August.

This is a rise from the total transaction count in July which stood at approximately 236 million.

The NPCI also clarified that the numbers for August do not include transactions with debit and credit to the same account.

Last month, in a circular to banks, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had stated that transactions, where the source and destination of the UPI payment is the same bank account, will be blocked starting August 1.

The total value of UPI transactions in the month of August stood at Rs 54, 212.26 crore, a rise from Rs 45,854.64 crore.

Earlier this month, the NPCI also launched released UPI 2.0, the upgraded version of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Urjit Patel, the Governor of Reserve Bank of India was present at the gathering to launch the upgraded payment infrastructure.

The new release allowed users (i.e., the merchants) to link their overdraft (OD) accounts to UPI, enabling them to continue withdrawing money even if the account doesn't have sufficient funds.

The new release added a one-time mandate essentially allowing users to block a certain amount in their account balance, while booking a product or service. The transaction goes through after the goods and services are delivered, essentially enacting a CoD (Cash-on-Delivery) transaction.

UPI 2.0 also included invoice in Inbox which allowed individuals or merchants to send an invoice along with a payment request in the Inbox and security features like Signed Intent & QR, designed for customers to check if the merchant is verified by UPI or not, while scanning QR code.

While revealing other numbers, the NPCI also said that the number of transactions for NETC Fastag (National Electronic Toll Collection) payment service stood at Rs 20.38 million in August, a rise from 18.46 million in July.

The total value of transactions processed over the NETC network stood at Rs 463.88 crore in August and Rs 418.08 crore in July.