Transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) stood Rs 4.93 lakh crore in April 2021, up by 3.6x compared to the same month in the previous year. Overall, transaction volumes in creased by 2.6x over the last year to 2.64 billion in April. While UPI payment volumes decreased by 3.4% to 2.64 billion in April 2021 over the previous month, the UPI transaction value declined by 2.2% compared to March.
This steep increase comes after a drastic slump in both metrics in April, given the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key observations
1. Decrease over March: The number of transactions decreased by 91.7 million in April, whereas the total amount transacted went down by Rs 11,223 crores. In the previous month (March 2021), volume had increased by 439 million and the amount transacted grew by Rs 79,824 crores.
2. Average transactions per day: Around 88 million transactions were completed and ₹16,455 crore was transacted on an average per day in April. The average number of transactions per day in March 2021 was the highest till date.
3. Size of transaction: The average amount exchanged per transaction increased marginally over the previous month to ₹1,870. However, this is a 24% YoY increase from ₹1,512 in April 2020. The average amount per transacted fell to its lowest in the past one year in November 2020, to ₹1,769.
4. Banks on UPI: 3 more banks onboarded UPI payments in March 2021, totalling 216 banks. The nationwide lockdown for coronavirus began at the end of March 2020, and lasted till mid-May after which relaxations have gradually come into place. It’s possible that more banks began UPI payments as unprecedented immobility, along with a need to limit human contact, meant a natural move to digital payments.
