UPI volume rises 27% to touch 145 billion in first half of FY27

UPI transactions through the popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in volume terms have witnessed a 27 per cent jump to around 145 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year.

This is against UPI volume 114 billion in during the April-September quarter of the previous financial year, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

However, UPI transactions during the value term rose a slightly lower rate of 20 per cent to Rs 177 lakh crore as against Rs 148 lakh crore during the first six months of the current financial year. As regards September, the UPI volume moderated by 1.7 per cent to 24.07 billion as compared to 24.5 billion recorded last month. On a month-on-month basis, value, too, declined 1.5 per cent to Rs 29.37 lakh crore against Rs 29.82 lakh crore in August.

The figures come a fortnight ahead of the implementation of the new merchant discount rate (MDR) fee on high-value UPI payments for merchants. Industry watchers attributed the decline to the fact that August has 31 days versus 30 in September, and pointed out that the average transactions per day were higher in September at 802 million versus 791 million in August. NPCI, an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA), is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India. It runs the UPI used for real-time payments between peers or at merchants' end while making purchases.

Effective October 15, a 0.4 per cent merchant discount rate will be levied on merchants for UPI over Rs 2,000. However, no charge will be levied on person-to-person transactions regardless of the amount.