Overall digital transactions for the first time has breached the 1-billion mark in a month, having clocked 1.06 billion in December, according to data released by RBI. It jumped by around 6.5% against November transaction numbers, which was 998 million.
The growth has been driven by strong show from all forms of payments across Unified Payments (UPI), IMPS, cards as well as wallets. The spectacular show of UPI has played a vital role having clocked almost a 40% jump in transaction volume month-onmonth. UPI clocked 145.5 million transactions against 104.8 million done in November.
Further jump in the volume was also seen for NPCI managed Immediate Payment Service or IMPS which grew almost 10% to reach 98 million in December against 89.5 million in November.
While smartphone-based transactions showed strong growth, traditional card payments also grew at a respectable 8% month-on-month. Debit and credit card payments clocked 264 million transactions in December against 244.6 million in the previous month.
A closer look at the numbers reveals that UPI has shown the strongest growth in terms of volume through 2017 albeit a low starting point. The payment mode which got a huge boost post demonetisation has been riding a spectacular growth wave assisted by entities like Paytm and Google Tez joining the bandwagon along with players like PhonePe and government promoted BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money).
From around 2 million in December last year, UPI has reached 145.5 million transactions in one year.
