According to the Worldline’s report titled “India Digital Payments Report for 1H 2024”, UPI(Unified Payments Interface) has maintained its dominant position with the total number of transactions grew by 52% Year-on-Year(YoY) in 1st Half of 2024(1H 2024 : from Jan to June), has increased from 51.9 billion(in 1H 2023) to 78.97 billion(in 1H 2024).
- The report noted that the surge in UPI transactions, particularly in Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transactions, consolidates UPI’s status as the preferred option for micro-transactions.
- The value of these UPI transactions increased by 40% from Rs 83.16 trillion (1H 2023) to Rs 116.63 trillion (1H 2024).
- The report showed that the number of transactions increased significantly from 8.03 billion (January 2023) to 13.9 billion (June 2024) and same trend can be seen in volume of UPI transaction value, which increased from Rs 12.98 trillion (January 2023) to Rs 20.07 trillion (June 2024).
Key Findings:
i.Increase in Deployment of Point of Sales (PoS): The report showed a significant increase in the payment’s infrastructure channels between January 2023 and June 2024, Point of Sales (PoS) terminals increased by 17% to 8.96 million (from 5.06 million in January 2023).
- Private Sector Banks topped among all banks in India in terms of PoS deployed, with a 80.6% market share , followed by Public Sector Banks (PSBs)accounted for 18.6%; Foreign and Small Finance Banks (SFBs) have a sub-1% market share, while Payment Banks have no terminals deployed at all.
- Top PoS deployers: As of June 2024, Axis Bank Limited, ICICI Bank Limited, HDFC Bank Limited, State Bank of India (SBI), RBL Bank Limited, Bandhan Bank Limited, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited(KMBL), Yes Bank Limited and Canara Bank, collectively accounted for 95% PoS terminals deployed.
- Also, the UPI Quick-Response(QR) grew by 39%, from 244.23 million (Jan 2023) to 340 million (June 2024).
ii.Decline in Average Ticket Size (ATS): The report mentioned that the Average Ticket Size (ATS) of all UPI transactions decreased by 8%, from Rs 1,603 to Rs 1,478. ATS comprises Person-to-Person (P2P) and P2M transactions.
- ATS in P2P transactions witnessed a marginal Y-o-Y increase of 1%, from Rs 2,812 to Rs 2,836.
- While, ATS for P2M transactions decreased by 4%, from Rs 667 to Rs 643.
iii.Top UPI Players: As of June 2024, PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm dominate the market, collectively accounting for 94.83% of all transactions by volume against 95.68% a year prior.
- While, in terms of transaction value, they collectively accounted for 92.21% (in June 2024) compared to 93.65% a year prior.
iv.Cards in Circulations: The report noted a growth of 11% in terms of number of cards in circulation. In June 2024, the total number of cards in circulation was 1.451 billion, of which credit cards (103.8 million), debit cards (979.71 million) and prepaid cards (367.5 million).
- Top 5 issuers of credit cards: HDFC Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and KMBL.
- Top 5 issuers of debit cards: SBI, Bank of Baroda (BoB), Canara Bank, Union Bank of India (UBI), HDFC Bank.
- Private Sector Banks had issued 71% of total credit cards, followed by Public Sector Banks (24%).
- 65% of debit cards were issued by Public Sector Banks, followed by Private Sector Banks (25%).
Other Key Points:
i.As per the report, Grocery stores, restaurants, service stations, clothing stores, government services, pharmacies, and hospital were the most visited in-store merchant categories in 1H 2024.
- They collectively accounted for nearly 53% of the overall transaction value and 68% of the transaction volume.
ii.The report highlighted that Electronic commerce(E-commerce), gaming utilities, government services, and financial services accounted for nearly 81% of the overall transaction volume and 74% of the transaction value.
iii.The report noted that online transactions via mobile phone apps saw an increase of 46% in terms of volume. The volume of mobile transactions increased from 52.15 billion (1H 2023) to 76.04 billion (1H 2024).
- The value of mobile transactions has increased by 36%, from Rs 132.40 trillion (1H 2023) to Rs 179.41 trillion (1H 2024).
iv. The number of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags issued has grown by 45% from 64.78million (in January 2023) to 94.56 million(in June 2024).
v.As per the report, the volume of Net Banking (NB) transactions has increased by 9% i.e. from 2.13 billion (1H 2023) to 2.31 billion (in 1H 2024).
- While, the NB transactions in terms of value has increased by 18%, from Rs 469.03 trillion (in 1H 2023) to Rs 553.78 trillion (in 1H 2024).
vi.The top 5 States and Union Territories(UT) with the highest number of transactions at physical touch points in 2024 were Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi.
About Worldline:
Worldline SA is a leading payment technology service provider.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)- Marc-Henri Desportes
CEO of Worldline India- Ramesh Narasimhan
Headquarters- Paris, France
Established- 1972
