UPI hits new milestone of five billion transactions a month in March

Bengaluru: As digital payments gain traction, in a first, unified payments interface (UPI) transactions in the country have breached the 5 billion mark in March, as per the latest data released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

NPCI, which operates UPI along with other payments infrastructure including Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), among others said that total UPI transactions recorded stood at 5.04 billion (or 504 crore), for a total value of Rs 8.88 lakh crore, in March this year. The latest data released by NPCI is as of March 29, 2022.

In comparison, total UPI transactions in February stood at 4.5 billion (or 452 crore), with a total value of Rs 8.26 lakh crore processed by the infrastructure. Usually February witnesses a dip in overall UPI transactions, owing to a lesser number of days as compared to March.

Currently, NPCI is piloting several projects with UPI, including UPI Lite, which will allow users to allocate funds from their bank accounts to the service to make offline transactions. The motive behind launching the service is to reduce the load on the UPI infrastructure, and avoid downtime for the service.


According to NPCI’s estimates, 75% of the total retail transactions in the country continue to be below Rs 100 in value. On UPI, almost 50% of the total offline transaction is up to Rs 200 in value.

To get more users in the fold, NPCI also recently launched the instant payment system UPI 123PAY, which will ride on the UPI network. The new product will allow feature phone users to undertake transactions through - interactive voice response (IVR) IVR, app functionality in feature phones, missed call-based approach or proximity sound-based payments.