{"id":2399,"date":"2020-01-06T14:40:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T09:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rzpwp.blog\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2025-02-26T11:53:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T06:23:51","slug":"upi-2019-transactions-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/upi-2019-transactions-data\/","title":{"rendered":"UPI Steals the Thunder in 2019!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2019 was a big year for fintech, especially payments. We saw the rise of many innovations that led India on its journey to becoming one of the most advanced countries concerning <a href=\"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/learn\/digital-payments-india-definition-methods-importance\/\">digital payments<\/a>. And, UPI is certainly an innovation that comes to mind when we think fintech.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the festivities in the air, we wanted to mark the beginning of the new year with a recap of all the cardinal developments of UPI in 2019, along with some noteworthy insights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Razorpay oversees payments from numerous merchants like IRCTC, Swiggy, BookMyShow, and 8 lakh+ partner business. We\u2019d like to quickly mention that we\u2019ve considered P2M (Person to Merchant) UPI transactions to derive the insights in this report, all of which are <\/span><b>based on the transactions made on the Razorpay platform<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>UPI in 2019 &#8211; a snapshot<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2019 was a remarkable year for UPI. We saw many use cases for the payment mode, observed growth in its adoption and analyzed volumes of UPI transactions throughout the year to bring these insights to you.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the first time ever, UPI overhauled cards (debit &amp; credit) in September and became the most preferred payment mode\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most loved UPI app in all of India was Google Pay, displaying colossal adoption and growth rates of 337.73%<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Karnataka was the most digitized state through 2019, contributing the highest chunk of digital payments from all over India<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bangalore recorded the highest number of UPI transactions from all over India<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Food and Beverage (29%) industry saw the most number of UPI transactions in 2019, followed by Financial Services\u00a0 (12%), and ravel industries (11%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>The upsurge of UPI<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UPI was innovated by <a href=\"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/learn\/national-payments-corporation-of-india-services\/\">NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India)<\/a> in 2016 to help Indian consumers make payments in real-time. What started as a mobile-first P2P (Person to Person) payment mode, quickly evolved itself to become the preferred merchant first platform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We looked through the UPI transactions made over the years. Here are some findings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2401 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9.png\" alt=\"UPI transactions 2019\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-9-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From its innovation in 2016, UPI set foot into 2017 with a bang. Considering all the UPI apps providing cashback, scratchcards, and other offers to promote adoption, the payment mode grew 95 times from 2016. We also saw several players competing to become the most used UPI app, which we will get to in a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we thought it couldn\u2019t possibly get any better than the 95x growth from 2016 to 2017, 2018 saw 48 times the growth in 2017.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although the offers provided by the UPI apps played a sizable role, we cannot rule out the change in consumer behavior in recent years. Consumers preferred online payments to be quick, easy and immediate. Compared to other payment modes, UPI was far simpler to use.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The authentication process was straightforward, and the best part &#8211; consumers didn\u2019t have to carry anything specific (other than their phone, of course) or remember long numbers. The ease of carrying out a UPI transaction was far more satisfying.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the beginning of 2019, most offers turned into \u2018better luck next time.\u2019 But that didn\u2019t slow UPI down one bit. The year noticed ten times the growth from 2018, still making a massive impact since the payment mode was widely used all over the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The ascension of UPI in 2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, let\u2019s take a look into some numbers that show how UPI performed throughout 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2402 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10.png\" alt=\"growth of UPI\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-10-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UPI had already gained a firm ground as it made into 2019. In the JFM quarter, the payment mode experienced an uptick of 128% from the previous quarter in 2018. Next, as it made its way to the AMJ quarter, the growth percentage increased by 71% from JFM.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At 26% growth in JAS from the previous quarter, UPI displayed steady growth throughout, venturing into OND with a propelling growth of 36%.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>UPI vs other payment modes<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While we paid utmost attention to observing UPI, we didn\u2019t forget the other payment modes. Let\u2019s take a glance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2403 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-12.png\" alt=\"UPI vs other payment modes\" width=\"1430\" height=\"968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-12.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-12-300x203.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-12-1024x693.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-12-768x520.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UPI was the most preferred payment mode towards the 2nd quarter of 2019, contributing the most number of digital transactions when we compared month-on-month. When we pooled in the data from throughout the year, we observed that cards took precedence over UPI at 45.73%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UPI was a close contender, taking second place at 37.69%, followed by netbanking at 11.43%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since cards and netbanking were close to UPI in terms of volume, we wanted to take a closer look.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>UPI vs debit cards<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2404 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1.png\" alt=\"UPI vs debit\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-23-1-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In JFM, debit cards were preferred over UPI by 0.65% and the trend continued in AMJ, where debit cards were used more than UPI by 0.91%<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This changed in JAS as UPI became the preferred payment mode over debit cards by 1.44% and took over cards in OND as well by 1.59%<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>UPI vs credit cards<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2405 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22.png\" alt=\"UPI vs credit\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-22-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike debit cards, UPI stole the show throughout the year and kicked credit cards to the curb as it transitioned into the most preferred payment mode.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>UPI vs netbanking<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2407 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21.png\" alt=\"UPI vs netbanking\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-21-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Remember the time netbanking was the most convenient way to transfer money? Not anymore! After overhauling cards, UPI stood over netbanking as well, all through 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>UPI transactions &#8211; a geographical split\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We analyzed the UPI transactions made from all over the country throughout 2019. Here are some highlights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2408 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28.png\" alt=\"geographical split\" width=\"1430\" height=\"948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28-1024x679.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28-768x509.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28-270x180.png 270w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-28-370x245.png 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As always, Karnataka claimed its position by contributing the better chunk of UPI transactions made in 2019, at 27.82%. Next up, 15.05% of the total UPI transactions were made in Maharashtra. Andra Pradesh and Telangana pitched in another 11.02%. Further, the NCR region contributed 8.06% of UPI transactions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This trend remained the same throughout the year as well, when we observed UPI transactions month-on-month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, let\u2019s take a look at a city-wise split.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Again, like many other times before, Bangalore was our #1 contributor as 38.4% of the total UPI transactions were made in the city. Hyderabad followed the lead at 13% while Pune handed in another 9.7%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Note<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; <\/span><b>Q<\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Why is Bangalore\u2019s contribution higher than Karnataka\u2019s?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>A<\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The state-wise split is different from the city-wise split. We considered the whole country to provide state-wise data, whereas we considered 15 cities for the city-wise data.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The elevation of UPI apps<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, we learned about how UPI did in 2019. Now, let\u2019s understand how some of our favorite UPI apps fared.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2409 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-25-1.png\" alt=\"UPI apps growth\" width=\"1430\" height=\"672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-25-1.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-25-1-300x141.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-25-1-1024x481.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-25-1-768x361.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Based on all the UPI transactions made in 2019 on the Razorpay platform, Google Pay took center stage as the most preferred UPI app. The app saw a growth of 337.73%, which is very significant, considering the adoption rates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PhonePe grew the most at 857.22% followed by PayTM at 827.68%, while <a href=\"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/learn\/bhim-app-growth-rural-upi-payments\/\">BHIM app<\/a> expanded by 108.68%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bank UPI apps also showed promising growth throughout 2019. Here\u2019s a look.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2411 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-26-1.png\" alt=\"UPI bank apps\" width=\"1430\" height=\"672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-26-1.png 1430w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-26-1-300x141.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-26-1-1024x481.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.razorpay.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Group-26-1-768x361.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s next for UPI?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UPI has been one of the most promising fintech innovations. It didn\u2019t fail to disrupt the Indian payments space, creating an impact we didn\u2019t anticipate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We expect UPI to permanently dethrone cards and netbanking to become the most preferred payment app in 2020. Based on our analysis, we also foresee an ambitious and competitive market for UPI in 2020, where Google Pay may continue its top position.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike before, Indian consumers are more comfortable using UPI for most digital transactions. We look forward to a paradigm shift towards the consumer confidence towards making larger value transactions via UPI.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We also predict a rising trend in the adoption of UPI in tier 2 and 3 cities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re very excited to continue our analysis on UPI transactions to see new patterns and trends in 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><i>(Note: All findings are based on the transactions on the Razorpay platform from 2016 to 2019.)<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPI was the most preferred payment mode towards the 2nd quarter of 2019, contributing the most number of digital transactions when we compared month-on-month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[51],"class_list":{"0":"post-2399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-payments","8":"tag-payments"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20961,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions\/20961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razorpay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}