Transactions carried out through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) channel may have begun to plateau in February after clocking month-on-month growth figures of 137% and 677% in January and December, respectively, representative data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed. UPI clocked 3.8 million transactions aggregating R1,730 crore during February, up only 3.6% from the corresponding figure in January. Also, in a first since the announcement of demonetisation of high-value currency notes on November 8, UPI volumes fell on a month-on-month basis to 3.8 million in February from 4.2 million in January.
The data for February, it must be noted, account for the first 26 days of the month, while that for January captures numbers from 31 days of the month. The average ticket size for a UPI transaction rose marginally to about R4,553 in February from about R4,517 in January.
In another first since November 8, transactions made via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) saw a month-on-month drop in terms of both volumes and value. Meant for users of feature phones to make financial transactions, the USSD channel saw volumes dropping 33.3% to 2.09 lakh and the value of transactions falling nearly 11% to R33.16 crore. USSD had also clocked phenomenal month-on-month growth of 268% and 1,320% in January and December, respectively, albeit on a low base.
Despite a muted growth, UPI retained its lead over wallets issued by non-banks, which saw 72.3 million transactions worth R1,720 crore, down from R2,099.2 crore in January. The data for wallets is sourced from eight non-bank issuers.
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The value of transactions at point-of-sale (PoS) machines recorded a fall for the second straight month, dropping 26.8% from January to R35,240 crore. PoS transactions had seen a 25% drop in value between January and December. This suggests that the return to cash usage has accelerated with the successive easing of cash withdrawal limits by the RBI.The weekly limit for withdrawals from savings accounts stands at R50,000, as against R24,000 earlier. Limits will not apply March 13 onwards.