Digital payments: India overshadows China, US & others in 2020, leads global tally

Amid COVID-19, India was home to the highest number of real-time online transactions in 2020 ahead of developed countries such as China and the US. A total of 25.5 billion real-time payments transactions were processed in India, followed by 15.7 billion in China, 6 billion in South Korea, 5.2 billion in Thailand, and 2.8 billion in the UK.

According to a report by the UK-based payments system company ACI Worldwide, the transaction volume share for instant payments India, among real-time transactions, was 15.6% and 22.9% for other electronic payments in 2020. Importantly, paper-based payments continued to have a considerable share of 61.4% in India.

India’s digital payments market led by Paytm, PhonePe, BharatPe, Pine Labs, Razorpay, and others on the B2C and B2B sides has surged during the pandemic even as incentives such as cash backs, rewards, and offers have helped businesses to attract more customers. Moreover, policy frameworks such as Pre-Paid Instruments, Universal Payment Interface by the NPCI apart from Aadhar, and the launch of BHIM-app have driven the financial inclusion and improved the payment acceptance infrastructure in the country in the past few years.