Cash transactions decline rapidly in India as digital payments surge: RBI economist

New Delhi: In the last three years, digital transactions have surged in such a fashion in India that cash usage, which still accounts for 60 per cent of consumer expenditure (as of March 2024) is rapidly declining, according to a paper by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) economist.

Pradip Bhuyan from the Reserve Bank’s Department of Currency Management wrote in the paper that the share of digital payments more than doubled from 14-19 per cent in March 2021 to 40-48 per cent in March 2024, with unified payments interface (UPI) playing a key role.

Cash or currency in circulation (CIC) represents the total notes and coins in circulation in the economy while currency with the public (CWP) is defined by CIC minus cash with banks, and accounts for around 95-97 per cent of CIC.

According to the RBI paper, in recent years, significant growth has been observed in retail digital payments (RDP), which is the total digital payments except for payments through real-time gross settlement.

Launched in 2016, UPI accounted for the highest share of RDP in volume in the last five years.

"From 2021-22 to 2023-24 (post Covid-19 period), the growth in UPI in volume was higher than that in value. Consequently, the average size of UPI transactions decreased from Rs 1,838 in 2020-21 to Rs 1,525 in 2023-24," the paper noted.

"The share of P2M (person to merchant) payments in total UPI transactions increased from 16.6 per cent in April 2021 to 26.2 per cent in March 2024 in value," it added. In volume, the share increased from 45.2 per cent to 61.7 per cent during the same period.

In this period, P2M payments increased nearly six-fold in volume and over five-fold in value and the growth far exceeded that observed for P2P (person to person) payments, the report emphasised.

UPI-based transaction volume surged 52 per cent to 78.97 billion in the first half of this year (H1 2024), from 51.9 billion in the same period last year. Similarly, the value of transactions grew by 40 per cent, increasing from Rs 83.16 lakh crore to Rs 116.63 lakh crore in the first six months of this year.