New Delhi: India logged over 65,000 crore digital payment transactions worth ₹12,000 trillion in the last six fiscal years—FY19 to FY25—marking a surge in the technology’s adoption across the country, including small towns and rural areas, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Monday. This has helped reduce cash dependency in the economy and increase formal economic participation.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Choudhary said the government has been closely working with various stakeholders, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), fintechs, banks, and state governments to boost adoption of digital payments across the country.
The RBI had set up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) in 2021 to encourage deployment of digital payments acceptance infrastructure in small towns and cities and remote parts, including the northeastern states and Jammu & Kashmir, the minister said.
Digital touch-points
As on May 31, around 4.77 crore digital touch-points had been deployed through the PIDF.
The RBI has developed the Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) to measure the extent of digitization of payments across the country. The index, published semi-annually, pegs March 2018 as the base period (index = 100). As per the latest release, the RBI-DPI was at 465.33 for September 2024, reflecting continued growth in digital payment adoption, infrastructure, and performance across the country, the minister said.
The government, the RBI and NPCI have taken various initiatives to support small businesses and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to facilitate the adoption of digital payment systems to expand their customer base and improve efficiency, he said.
These include an incentive scheme for promotion of low-value BHIM-UPI transactions for small merchants, Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) guidelines that allow MSMEs to get their invoices discounted on its platform at competitive rates, and the rationalization of merchant discount rate (MDR) for debit card transactions.
The growing adoption of digital payments has revolutionized access to financial services, particularly for the underserved and unserved communities. By enabling seamless, traceable transactions through platforms such as unified payments interface (UPI), digital payments have created a robust financial footprint for individuals and businesses, Choudhary said.
These footprints also serve as alternative data points for financial institutions, allowing them to assess the creditworthiness of customers even in the absence of traditional documentation, he said. More people are thus able to access formal credit channels and enter the financial ecosystem.