Govt keen on survey to measure popularity of UPI

With Unified Payments Interface (UPI) setting a blistering pace of adoption in the country and also impressing policymakers beyond India’s borders, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is about to get a survey done to gauge the perception of a cross-section of the people on the payment mode. The entire objective appears to obtain a detailed understanding of the digital payments process so that it can be further enriched in future.

The Economic Times has reported that MeitY has put across a request to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to this effect. MeitY wants MoSPI to get a survey done on the use of digital payments.

The survey would be comprehensive in detailing the nature and objective of usage of UPI. The ministry would try to find out details like average ticket size of UPI payment, the region in which the adoption of UPI is higher, how safe do users perceive UPI to be etc.

Quoting a ministry official, the report said that another important aspect that MeitY is seeking answer to is whether, in the public perception, UPI has displaced credit and debit cards as the default payment method for high-value transactions as well. The government also wants to find out whether there is any gender divide in the usage pattern of the UPI.

“The idea is to understand the UPI ecosystem better. We would like to know what else can be done to increase the outreach of digital payments,” the official said.

In a matter of just six years, it has become the most popular payment mode in the country. Promoted by the National Payments Corporation of India, UPI has caught the fancy of countries such as Germany and France too for its sheer convenience and ability to dispense with cash. MeitY has set a goal of reaching a $1 trillion digital economy over the next few years.

UPI transactions have crossed the 10 billion mark in both August and September. The number of transactions this financial year has witnessed a steady increase: 8.86 billion in April, 9.42 billion in May, 9.34 billion in June, 9.96 billion in July, 10.59 billion in August and 10.56 billion in September.

In this short time, UPI has virtually edged out other digital payment methods in the country. In April-March 2022-23, UPI contributed 73% of the total volume of 114 billion digital payments in India.

Earlier this year, MeitY floated another request for proposal seeking bids from agencies and academic institutions to estimate the size of the digital economy.

Besides UPI, MeitY has also sought to know the average expenditure on electronic devices such as mobile, laptops and all-in-one personal computers. It also wants to know if UPI and other digital payment systems have generated jobs apart from creating customer convenience.