Digital payments in India reverse trend, grow in March
Vivek Kaul, author of Easy Money trilogy said, There is a seasonality factor as well. March is the last month of the financial year and digital payments seem to go up during the course of the month, as people pay their taxes (advance income tax and service tax) as well as settle business payments between them.
Total digital transactions in India stood at 893.9 million with value of Rs 149,58,910 crore in March, followed by 763 million volumes with Rs 92,59,450 crore in February 2017 and 870.4 million volumes with Rs 97,01,140 crore in January.
Although digital payments slowed down in January and February, they jumped in to stand at 957.5 million in volume and value at Rs 104,05,530 crore during December 2016 (end of demonetisation period).
Vivek Kaul, author of Easy Money trilogy, in his blog post said, "There is a seasonality factor as well. March is the last month of the financial year and digital payments seem to go up during the course of the month, as people pay their taxes (advance income tax and service tax) as well as settle business payments between them."
There are ten major electronic payment system considered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) presently. They are - Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Cheque Truncation System (CTS), National Automated Clearing House (NACH), Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Debit and Credit cards at Point of Sale (POS), Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) and lastly Mobile Banking.
Here's an view of digital payment mode performance pre and post demonetisation.
While currency in circulation improved, ATMs still run dry
At POS, cumulatively there were 125.4 million transaction made between April 01 – 18, 2017, totaling up to Rs 22,640 crore. From March 01 – 18, 2017, this mode held 132.8 million transaction with Rs 23,950 crore.
Just like every other digital payment mode, transactions at POS also suffered in the month of January and February after recording transaction volume of 311 million with value Rs 52,220 crore in December 2016.
Performance eased in March with 229.7 million transactions totaling up to Rs 41,620 crore. Though growth has been down by 26% in volume terms and 20.29% in value terms in March compared to December numbers.
Mobile Banking:
Transaction through this mode has been on another roller coaster ride. Mobile banking came down to 64.9 million in January, 56.2 million in February and stayed at 60.8 million by end of March in volume terms.
Between April 1-18, mobile banking reached 34.1 million transactions totaling Rs 56,650 crore. This is lower than 37.3 million transactions with Rs 91,180 crore recorded between March 01 - March 18, 2017.
Growth in volume has come down by 13.39% in March compared to December, but valuation has increased by nearly 10% in March from December.
This means that people used less transactions to transfer more money.
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