Digital payments continued to perform well in December with transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) attaining the ₹4-lakh crore mark in terms of value. The digital payments on the rise are taking place in a time of continued festive season spends at the year-end and helping in improving the economic activity.

According to the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India, 207 banks are live on the UPI platform, and in December, transactions amounted to ₹4,16,176.21 crore with a total of 223.41 crore payments were processed in comparison to 221.02 crore transactions worth ₹3.9-lakh crore which were processed in November. The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) also rose to 35.56 crores amounting to ₹2.92-lakh crore in December in comparison to 33.91 crore payments worth ₹2.76-lakh crore processed in November. Bharat BillPay processed 2.62 crore transactions amounting to ₹3,962.76 crores in December in comparison to 2.39 crore payments of ₹3,713.21 crores processed in November. FASTag also recorded high payments of 13.84 crore transactions worth ₹2,303.79 crores in December in comparison to 12.48 crore transactions worth ₹2,102.02 crores in November.

With the compulsory implementation of FASTag in highways starting from this month, these transactions are more likely to see further growth. RBI also spoke about the trajectory of growth in UPI-based transactions as well as overall retail digital transactions being impressive in both value and volume terms.