Notwithstanding the national lockdown, digital payments rebounded in May, with transaction volumes in Unified Payments Interface (UPI), FASTag and BharatBill Pay exceeding March levels.

The Centre’s flagship BHIM UPI clocked 123 crore transactions last month, processing ₹2.18-lakh crore worth of payments. The transaction volume is the second highest ever, the highest being in February 2020, when BHIM UPI processed ₹2.22-lakh crore of payments.

In April, the number of transactions on the platform had fallen to 99 lakh, involving ₹1.51-lakh crore of payments.

Data released by the National Payments Corporation of India on Monday revealed that the number of transactions on Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) touched 16.68 crore in May, worth ₹1.69-lakh crore. This was a sharp jump from 12.24 crore transactions amounting to ₹1.21-lakh crore in April.

Similarly, with people mostly staying home, transactions on BharatBill Pay scaled a new high in May of 1.65 crore in terms of volume and ₹2,178.72 crore in value terms. In April, it registered 1.27 crore transactions involving ₹1,371.17 crore of payments. The number of active billers on BharatBill Pay surged to 216 in May from 190 in April.

Many schools and educational institutions are also being onboarded on the platform by banks now.

The NETC FASTag platform also saw a sharp growth in transactions last month despite the movement of only essential goods being allowed in several regions. As many as 5.5 crore transactions amounting to ₹1,142.34 crore were processed on the platform in May compared to just 1.02 crore transactions worth ₹247.58 crore the previous month.

Digital payment players have also been reporting a higher number of transactions in May. While some of it is due to pent-up demand, players have also reported that customers are stepping out lesser but purchasing in bigger quantities from home.

Additionally, last month, the Centre partially relaxed lockdown norms to permit the delivery of non-essential e-commerce as well. Further, with concerns of spread of Covid-19 through touch, many customers prefer contactless payment solutions to currency notes.

Published on June 01, 2020

A letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

The coronavirus crisis has changed the world completely in the last few months. All of us have been locked into our homes, economic activity has come to a near standstill. Everyone has been impacted.

Including your favourite business and financial newspaper. Our printing and distribution chains have been severely disrupted across the country, leaving readers without access to newspapers. Newspaper delivery agents have also been unable to service their customers because of multiple restrictions.

In these difficult times, we, at BusinessLine have been working continuously every day so that you are informed about all the developments – whether on the pandemic, on policy responses, or the impact on the world of business and finance. Our team has been working round the clock to keep track of developments so that you – the reader – gets accurate information and actionable insights so that you can protect your jobs, businesses, finances and investments.

We are trying our best to ensure the newspaper reaches your hands every day. We have also ensured that even if your paper is not delivered, you can access BusinessLine in the e-paper format – just as it appears in print. Our website and apps too, are updated every minute, so that you can access the information you want anywhere, anytime.

But all this comes at a heavy cost. As you are aware, the lockdowns have wiped out almost all our entire revenue stream. Sustaining our quality journalism has become extremely challenging. That we have managed so far is thanks to your support. I thank all our subscribers – print and digital – for your support.

I appeal to all or readers to help us navigate these challenging times and help sustain one of the truly independent and credible voices in the world of Indian journalism. Doing so is easy. You can help us enormously simply by subscribing to our digital or e-paper editions. We offer several affordable subscription plans for our website, which includes Portfolio, our investment advisory section that offers rich investment advice from our highly qualified, in-house Research Bureau, the only such team in the Indian newspaper industry.

A little help from you can make a huge difference to the cause of quality journalism!

Support Quality Journalism