New Delhi: India’s digital payments landscape is on the brink of a historic revolution due to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system. A recent report by PwC India, titled “The Indian Payments Handbook – 2022-27”, has projected that UPI will achieve a groundbreaking milestone of 1 billion daily transactions by 2026-27.
During the period of 2022-23, UPI accounted for 75 per cent of the total transaction volume, signifying a massive shift towards digital payments. In the next five years, UPI is projected to strengthen its grip on the retail digital payments landscape and reach an astounding 90 per cent of the total transaction volume.
The exponential growth of UPI transactions paints a vivid picture of the nation’s evolving payment habits. With a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50 per cent, the total number of online transactions is projected to surge from 103 billion in FY 2022-23 to 411 billion in FY 2026-27. UPI transactions, in particular, are expected to experience a substantial rise from 83.71 billion in 2022-23 to a staggering 379 billion transactions by 2026-27, according to the report.
Credit Card segment
According to the report, credit card transactions are projected to surpass debit card transactions by FY 2024-2025, marking a significant turning point. This shift can be attributed to the convenience and versatility offered by credit cards, making them increasingly favoured by consumers. Over the next five years, credit card issuance is expected to record a CAGR of 21 per cent.
The report emphasises that the payments industry will focus on expanding the ecosystem and developing new use cases for existing payment platforms in the coming years. Areas such as embedded and ecosystem finance, digital lending based on payment transactions, and offline payments are predicted to drive the next phase of growth in the payments industry.
