The adoption of UPI has kicked off since December 2016

According to representative data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in January 2017, digital payments fell 10.2% by volume and 7% by value in January 2017 against December 2016.

 

The RBI has started releasing information on payment systems in the aftermath of the notes ban on November 8, 2016. On comparing the data from Novembe 2016 and December 2016, the total number of digital transactions fell from 1,027.7 million in December 2016 to 922.9 million in January 2017. This data included transactions on credit and debit cards, electronic fund transfers, digital wallets and mobile banking transactions. 

 

The RBI data capture card transactions of four banks, prepaid instruments from eight non-banks and mobile banking figures from five banks. While there was a slag in digital transactions in January 2017, the adoption of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) also kicked off. In November 2016, while only 0.3 million transactions through UPI were reported. In January 2017, this number rose to 4.2 million.

 

While introducing Budget 2017, Arun Jaitley, the Union Finance Minister, announced the government's mission to achieve a target of 2,500 crore digital transactions in 2017 through UPI, USSD, Aadhar Pay, IMPS and debit cards. 

 

The drop in the number of digital transactions in the month of January 2017 is a warning sign. It will be interesting to observe how does the government plan to remedy this.