Google Pay, using the universal payments interface (UPI), continues to lead among the most used digital payment apps in the country with 59% followed by PhonePe at 26%. These are the percentage contributions by these apps within the UPI ecosystem. UPI incidentally is the most popular payments interface between the banks and the digital payments apps. Apart from Google Pay and PhonePe, there are Paytm (7%) and BHIM (6%). Razorpay, a fintech startup, has filed a report titled “The Era of Rising Fintech”. The above figures have been quoted in this report and are pertaining to the year 2019.
The figures for these digital payment apps have changed from those for the previous year, 2018. The figures for 2018 were, Google Pay 48%, BHIM 27%, PhonePe 15% and Paytm 4%. It is quite obvious that BHIM has been the biggest loser among the apps, with Google Pay and PhonePe gaining most from the loss of business by BHIM.
The same study by Razorpay also reveals that in terms of popularity, Amazon Pay at 33% scores over the others.
The year 2019 also witnessed a dramatic change in financial transactions from cards to UPI. While card (debit and credit card) transactions came down from 56% to 46% and net banking from 23% to 11%, UPI-based money transfers and payments went up from 17% in 2018 to 38% in 2019.
At a macro level, the Razorpay report indicates that there was a 338% growth in digital payments in one financial year, 2018-19 which is unprecedented. Leading the pack was undoubtedly UPI. UPI led with not just person to person or peer to peer P2P transactions, but peer to merchants or P2M transactions as well.
The study undertaken by Razorpay on digital transactions in the country took a look at the cities which contributed the maximum and here there were hardly any surprises. Bangalore stood first with 23.31% and Delhi next with 10.44%. Hyderabad, which stood third with 7.61% had actually been in the second position the previous year. Delhi which was in the third slot in 2018 made a jump to the second place in 2019.
Other statistics reported included the top states, with Karnataka and Maharashtra leading the pack with highest adoption of digital payments. In terms of the category, food and beverage accounted for 26% of all transactions and followed by financial services and transportation.