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Monthly transactions through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed the 500 million mark for the first time in November, data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on 01 December, 2018 showed.
Under the UPI, 524.94 million transactions amounting to Rs 82,232.21 crore were carried out during the month, a 9% increase in transaction volume, compared with 482.36 million transactions worth Rs 74,978.27 crore in October.
In a move aimed at curbing fake transactions and regulating fintech companies from inflating their UPI numbers, the NPCI had asked banks to stop transactions originating from different UPI applications with the debit and the credit happening in the same account, from 01 August. In September, the monthly transactions through UPI had crossed 400 million for the first time. On 16 August, NPCI launched UPI 2.0, an upgraded version of UPI, with several new features, including an overdraft facility enabling customers to link their overdraft accounts to the UPI.
Also, a one-time feature allowing customers to pre-authorise a transaction and pay at a later date, and the invoice-in-the-box feature allowing customers to check the invoice sent by merchants before making a payment were introduced. The signed intent and QR feature enables customers to check the authenticity of merchants while scanning the QR codes.
Of the total UPI transactions in November, 17.35 million amounting to Rs 7,981.82 crore took place through the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) platform. Transactions through the UPI received a major stimulus after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the BHIM app on 30 December 2016. In the last one year, the monthly UPI transaction volume has gone up by more than 2,000%, according to NPCI data.