India’s instant payments mechanism, the unified payment interface (UPI) processed Rs 83.45 lakh crore worth of transactions in FY22. But this record is likely to be broken soon given that UPI processed Rs 10.41 lakh crore worth of transactions in the month of May 2022 itself.
This is the highest single-month of transactions processed by UPI since its launch in 2016. The number of transactions processed by it stood at 5.95 billion transactions, which is also another significant milestone in itself.
For the first month (April) of this financial year, UPI processed 5.58 billion transactions collectively worth Rs 9.83 lakh crore. So, when directly compared with April’s transaction figures, the volume of transactions in May was up by 6.63 per cent, and the value of transactions in monetary terms was up by 5.91 per cent.
Thus, both the volume and the value of UPI transactions increased by a significant margin.
In an annual report, the Reserve Bank of India had stated that to increase India’s cross border payment arrangements, the RBI was exploring the possibility of linking UPI with similar systems in other countries, specifically in G20 nations.
The RBI also said that it is a participant in the discussions about the fundamentals and future roadmap of UPI and cross-border remittance with the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), and Financial Stability Board (FSB).
So far, for cross-border payments, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has struck a partnership with PayNow, a Singapore-based payment systems company. This partnership is expected to lay the foundation for the cross-border payments ecosystem in India. The RBI has stated that this partnership is expected to become operational in the second half of 2022.
