YouTube adds UPI payment option for Indian users

YouTube on Thursday added the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a new form of payment option for its users. In India, the payment mode is now available on both YouTube and YouTube Music.

Earlier, the payment options were only confined to credit card users and debit card users. Following this integration, YouTube users can now use their unique UPI ID and make transactions directly from their bank accounts.

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With this, users who use UPI apps like BHIM, Google Pay, Paytm, PhonePe, and Amazon UPI will now be able to make payments on YouTube and YouTube Music. Earlier, in March this year, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) showed that UPI transactions in India in February recorded the highest-ever volume figures, witnessing close to 1.32 billion or 132 crore transactions.

According to the data released by the retail payments organisation, the number is slightly higher from that of January figures, when the transactions were recorded at 1.31 billion or 131 crore. Further, in December last year and January this year, there were negligible changes in the total number of UPI transactions.

The payment mode can be used to subscribe to the digital products on a monthly and quarterly prepaid basis, and one can also buy and rent movies, and pay for features like SuperChat and Channel memberships.

In September last year, Google also added the UPI payment mode on the Google Play store for its Indian users to make online transactions and engage with it.

The total value transacted through the UPI network grew to Rs 2.22 lakh crore in February - the highest-ever to date since its launch in 2016 - up 2.6 percent increase since January, when the total value transacted through the UPI network stood at Rs 2.16 lakh crore. In December last year, a total of Rs 2.02 lakh crore in payment value was reported.