Ministry of Finance: India’s UPI transactions exceed 9,300 in 2023-24, other countries join India’s digital payment boom

India’s UPI transaction volume exceeded Rs 9,300 crore in 2023-24 (as of December 31 last year), Finance Minister Bhagwat Karad said on Monday. When talking about the key issue of including residents of other countries in the unified payment interface user list, he also said that a total of 386 such transactions were conducted abroad in 2022.

Replying to a question related to UPI, the Union Minister said that the Reserve Bank of India in its notification on February 10, 2023 paved the way for foreign citizens and non-resident Indians to use UPI. This enables them to make UPI payments while in India. Passengers from G20 countries at international airports such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi can also use the facility for commercial payments.

Karad’s response included that NRIs with international mobile numbers linked to their Non-Resident External (NRE)/Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) accounts can now use UPI. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said the service is currently allowed in Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The minister provided comprehensive data on UPI transactions for the past four financial years:

• FY 2023-24 (data ended on December 31, 2023): 9,338.38 (in Rs. Crores), 1,43,47,778.98 (in Rs. Crores)
• FY 2022-23: Rs 8,371.44 Crore Volume, 1,39,14,931.61 (Rs Crore Value)
• FY 2021-22: 4,595.61 (in Rs. Crores), 84,15,899.88 (in Rs. Crores)
• FY 2020-21: 2,233.07 (in Rs. Crores), 41,03,657.82 (in Rs. Crores)
• FY 2019-20: 1,251.86 (in Rs. Crores), 21,31,730.13 (in Rs. Crores)

It is worth noting that ‘volume’ is like counting the number of times people have used UPI, while ‘value’ means how much money was involved during these transactions. For example, in 2019-20, people used UPI at least 1,251.86 crore times and the total amount involved was Rs 21,31,730.13 crore.

However, these developments are an important step towards global UPI accessibility and demonstrate the strong growth of UPI transactions in India and abroad.