India’s domestic United Payments Interface (UPI) remained the most preferred mode of payment in Q1 of 2022, according to a recent report released Worldline.
The report titled ‘India Digital Payments Report’ Q1 2022 analysed the transactions available in public databases as well as those processed by them, in the first quarter (January – March 2022).
According to the report, UPI’s payment to merchant (P2M) transactions accounted for 64 per cent in volume and 50 per cent in terms of value of the total 9.36 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.25 trillion processed in India during the period.
The other payment modes included, debit and credit cards, and prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), such as mobile wallets and prepaid cards.
That said, credit cards, though accounting for 7 per cent of the transactions in terms of volume, still accounted for 26 per cent in value terms, thus indicating that customers preferred credit cards for high value transactions over other modes of payment. Debit cards, on the other hand, while accounting for 10 per cent of transactions in volume, accounted for 18 per cent in value terms, the report said.
The report said that UPI has doubled its transactions in both volume and value terms over the previous year, increasing to about 99 per cent in volume and over 90 per cent in value compared to Q1 2021.
In Q1 2022, the top remitter banks were State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank and Paytm Payments Bank, while the top beneficiary banks were Paytm Payments Bank, State Bank of India, Yes Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank.
As of Q1 2022, the top UPI Apps in terms of volume were PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm Payments Bank App, Amazon Pay, Axis banks App, while top PSP UPI Players were Yes Bank, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Paytm Payments Bank.
Among the top UPI Apps, Phone Pe, Google Pay and Paytm accounted for 94.8 per cent of UPI transactions volume and 93 per cent of UPI transactions value as of March 2022, the report added.
The report further said that P2M transactions saw a 24 per cent increase in Q1 2022 as compared to the same quarter in the year ago period.
According to the report, grocery stores, restaurants, clothing and apparel, pharmacy and medical, hotels, jewellery retail, specialty retail, household appliances and departmental stores accounted for over 60 per cent in terms of volume and about 58 per cent in terms of value of UPI transactions.
In the online space, e-commerce (shopping for goods and services), gaming, utility, financial services contributed to over 85 per cent in terms of volume and 47 per cent in terms of value.
The top states were Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal. The top-10 cities were Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara, the report said.
