Consumer spending through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on debt collection agencies, groceries & supermarkets and securities brokers & dealers took the top three positions in August, according to the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
The discretionary spending on the food and beverage sector showed a recovery – spending in bars, clubs and lounges turned positive after slipping for the past three months.
Consumer spending in restaurants grew 6.7%
Consumer spending in restaurants grew 6.7% on month to Rs 19,432 crore, while for bars, it was up 3% to Rs 3,414 crore.
Following the ban on online gaming, the segment saw a fall not only in terms of volume, but in value as well. The spending on gaming declined 26.2% on month to Rs 7,441 crore.
Debt collection agencies continued to occupy the pole position. However, the value of transactions fell nearly 18% month-on-month to Rs 77,007 crore.
Groceries and supermarkets saw a rise of around 5% to `68,116 crore, and payments to brokers and dealers for
buying securities stood at Rs 45,687 crore.
Total UPI transactions in August reached 20 billion
Transaction values of utilities – electric, gas, water and sanitary – and the telecommunication services segment, including local and long-distance calls, fell 4.8% and 2%, respectively.
In terms of transaction volume, PhonePe was the market leader with an estimated 9.6 billion transactions, followed by Google Pay with 7.4 billion transactions and Paytm in third place with 1.6 billion transactions.
Their shares of the total transaction value reflected a similar trend, with PhonePe holding 48.64%, Google Pay contributing 35.53%, and Paytm accounting for about 8.5%.
Other notable platforms in the ecosystem include Navi and CRED, which also featured among the top five applications by transaction volume. Navi processed around 406 million transactions, while CRED handled approximately 219 million.
On average, the UPI network handled more than 645 million transactions each day throughout August.
Total UPI transactions in August reached 20 billion, valued at Rs 24.85 lakh crore.
Of this, UPI transactions in merchant category-wise classification, or MCC, rose 2.6% to 12.71 billion.
However, in terms of value, it fell almost 1.4% to Rs 7.24 lakh crore.
In August this year, The daily unified payments interface (UPI)-based transactions have crossed 700 million for the first time, touching 707 million, according to the latest National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data.