Digital transactions have been increasing on an unimaginable pace and with the latest development, India has crossed 46 billion transactions which is 14% more than the Government’s goal for FY 20. Ministry of electronics and information technology (MEITY) reported the news in a letter addressed to bank chiefs last week.
Post demonetization, government has been pushing for digital payments and targeted a little over 40 billion in fiscal year 20. The overall transactions have grown by 46% from last year. According to one of the sources, the target for the current financial year is over 46 billion transactions owing to the ongoing pandemic.
According to the letter, the top five highest performing lenders were ICICI bank, HDFC bank, Yes bank, IndusInd bank and Fino Payments bank. Fino is the only payments bank among the top league of banks. For the private bank majors, all three – ICICI, HDFC and Yes Bank – are top banking partners of leading payments platforms on UPI like Google Pay and PhonePe. UPI has recorded 1.34 billion transactions in June.
As the Covid-19 cases rise, masses will turn towards digital world so as to avoid physical contacts as a precautionary measure to reduce the chances of contraction. the payments industry has been reeling under pressure with the government making the merchant discount rate (MDR) zero. MDR is a fee to facilitate online payments and industry executives said it is critical to keep this charge to build sustainable businesses.