Digital payments continued to fall for a second consecutive month in May amid the second wave of Covid-19 leading to lockdowns in many States. Payments by Bharat BillPay and Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) were an exception to this situation. Transactions through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) slumped to a three-month low, as per the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

The number of transactions on BHIM UPI declined from 264 crore transactions worth ₹4.93 lakh crore in April to 253 crores in May amounting to ₹4.9 lakh crore. The UPI transactions had earlier crossed the ₹5-lakh crore mark in March but have been falling since then because of the lockdowns. Likewise, transactions on the IMPS platform also continued to fell in May, 27.98 crore transactions totaling ₹2.66 lakh crore were processed through IMPS in May in comparison to 32.2 crore payments worth ₹2.99 lakh crore made through IMPS in April reflecting lower mobility. Transactions through FASTags also declined, a total of 11.64 crore transactions valued at ₹2,125.16 crores took place through NETC FASTags in May as against 16.43 crore transactions worth ₹2,776.9 crores in April this year.

With people favoring staying at home and avoiding crowds, payments on Bharat BillPay surged to 3.92 crores in May after a slight decline in April when it was at 3.53 crore. Payments worth ₹6,270.31 crores took place through the platform in May as compared to ₹5,201.92 crores in April. The number of live billers on Bharat BillPay also rose from 19,954 in April to 20,186 last month. AePS transactions also rose from 7.4 crore transactions worth ₹22,139.05 crores in April to 8.42 crore in May amounting to a total of ₹24,619.24 crores.