In a 1st, UPI transactions hit 5billion in March

Transactions under the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed the 5-billion count for the first time in March 2022 — two days ahead of the month end.

According to data shared by the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), UPI recorded 504 crore transactions up to March 29 for a value of Rs 8,88,169 crore. The account-to-account fund transfer platform had crossed 400 crore transactions in the month of October 2021, hitting a new record.

The record numbers for four weeks in March comes after a marginal decline in February this year when the value of retail transactions dipped to Rs 8.27 lakh crore from Rs 8.32 lakh crore in January 2022.

The number of transactions in February also dipped marginally to 452 crore from 461 crore in January. The payment channel, which is only five years old, grew from zero in June 2016 to a billion transactions a month in October 2019.