The Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, was launched in India in April 2016 by former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram G Rajan. The credit for developing this unique payments system is largely given to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Indian Banks Association (IBA). But none could perhaps foresee the degree of adoption it has recorded in less than 10 years of launch.
The popularity of UPI has expanded to include other countries too. As many as seven countries such as France, UAE, Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Mauritius have allowed UPI transactions too.
UPI’s sizzling score in 11 months of 2024
According to data shared on social media X (earlier Tweeter) by the Union Finance Ministry, UPI has processed nothing less than 15,547 crore transactions that are cumulatively worth Rs 223 lakh crore in the 11 months between January 1 and November 30. “Strengthening digitisation with UPI” is the slogan that the ministry’s post says. It carries the hashtag #FinMinYearReview2024. That the seven countries have allowed UPI transactions was also mentioned by the ministry on its post. Significantly, the figure of Rs 223 lakh crore in 11 months works out to Rs 66,657.16 crore a day or Rs 46.22 crore a minute.
Advantages of UPI
The introduction of UPI has revolutionised for quite a few reasons. One, at the user level, it has obviated the need to carry a lot of cash and loose change. Earlier, there were major problems, and bickering, in the streets and the markets for want of loose change for common transactions. The UPI has substantially removed this major irritant.
At the government level, it serves its purpose of reducing cash transaction. The UPI has empowered users to do instant money transfers, merchant payments, and peer-to-peer transactions extremely smoothly.
According to data, UPI processed as many as 16.58 billion financial transactions in October which are valued at Rs 23.49 lakh crore. This figure is a 45% rise compared to the data registered in October 2023 – a month when 11.40 billion transactions were conducted.
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