PM Modi Expresses Delight as UPI Payments Reach Record High in December

As India hit a milestone of UPI Transactions worth Rs 12.8 lakh crore in December 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded fellow countrymen for adopting digital payments.

Posting a Twitter thread from a fintech professional, PM Modi wrote in the caption, "I like how you’ve brought out the rising popularity of UPI. I laud my fellow Indians for embracing digital payments! They’ve shown remarkable adaptability to tech and innovation".

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the leading payment system in India, had a strong finish to the year 2022 with a record-breaking 7.82 billion transactions recorded in December.

Data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the country's governing body for retail digital payments, showed that the volume of transactions increased by 7.12 per cent in December over November while the value increased by 7.73 per cent over the same time.

With a few minor blips due to pandemic-related restrictions in several years months, UPI transaction volume and value have remained on an upward trajectory for the past two years, reflecting the recovery of the broader economy and the growing use of digital payment methods by consumers for their everyday transactions.

Notably, a little over three years after its inception in 2016, UPI crossed the one billion transaction threshold in October 2019. The additional billion transactions have poured in since then.

By October 2020, it has handled more than 2 billion transactions. And throughout the course of the next ten months, UPI handled more than 3 billion transactions each month.