Digital payments boom: Record 29% growth recorded at March-end

Digital payments across the country registered a growth of nearly 29 per cent in a year through March 2022, as per the RBI's latest index that measures the adoption of online transactions.

The newly constituted RBI's digital payment index (RBI-DPI) stood at 349.3 in March 2022 against 304.06 in September 2021 and 270.59 per cent in March 2021.

"The RBI-DPI index has demonstrated significant growth, representing the rapid adoption and deepening of digital payments across the country in recent years," the RBI said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Reserve Bank had announced the construction of a composite Reserve Bank of India-Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) in March 2018 as a base to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.

The RBI-DPI comprises 5 broad parameters that enable the measurement of the deepening and penetration of digital payments in the country over different periods.

These parameters are Payment Enablers (weight 25 per cent); Payment Infrastructure; Demand-side factors (10 per cent); Payment Infrastructure; Supply-side factors (15 per cent); Payment Performance (45 per cent); and Consumer Centricity (5 per cent).

The index is published on a semi-annual basis from March 2021 onwards with a lag of 4 months.