UPI crosses 2.3B transactions, says NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has surpassed 2.3 billion transactions amounting to Rs 4.2 trillion for the month of January 2021. NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said in a tweet:

"Phenomenal! UPI recorded 2.3 billion transactions worth Rs 4.3 trillion in Jan 2021. On a YOY basis, UPIs transaction value jumped 76.5 percent while transaction value jumped nearly 100 percent. It took UPI 3 years to cross 1 billion transactions a month. Next billion came in less than a year," the NITI Aayog CEO tweeted.

Kant further said that UPI's transactions value jumped 76.5 percent, while the transaction value jumped nearly 100 percent.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an interface that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing, and merchant payments into one hood. It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.

An indigenously developed technology platform, UPI allows low cost and easy online financial transactions. It is also regarded as one of the flagship examples of the Digital India initiative as it sparked competition between fintech players such as PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm.

UPI passed two billion transactions in October 2020, with a total value of Rs 3.86 trillion. According to official statistics from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the total value of transactions on the platform at the end of December 2019 had been Rs 2,02,520.76 crore, and this figure touched Rs 4,16,176.21 crore by December 2020.

UPI payments crossed one billion transactions in October 2019. It took UPI three years to reach a billion transactions a month, but it took just a year to reach the two billion mark. 

UPI is used for low-ticket size transactions, with the average ticket size being Rs 200.