New Delhi: The volume of digital transactions in the country grew more than six-fold from 3,401 crore in 2019-20 to 22,198 crore in 2024-25, the government has informed Parliament. During the same period, the total value of money transacted recorded a nearly 77 percent growth to reach Rs 2,862 lakh-crore from Rs 1,619 lakh-crore.
The data was provided by Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written response in Lok Sabha to a question asked by three Shiv Sena MPs—Shrikant Eknath Shinde, Naresh Ganpat Maske, Ravindra Dattaram Waikar—and Lok Janshakti Party MP Shambhavi Choudhary,
“RBI set up a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) in 2021 to encourage deployment of digital payments acceptance infrastructure in tier-3 to 6 cities, North-Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir. As on May 31, 2025, around 4.77 Crore digital touch points have been deployed through PIDF,” Chaudhary said in his reply.
The RBI has developed the Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) to measure the extent of digitisation of payments across the country based on March as base year 2018 (Index 100). The index stands at 493.22 as of March 2025, representing a 10.7 percent growth from March 2024 value of 465.33.
The data for the index is published by the RBI semi-annually, outlining the penetration of digital payments in the country.
The index is based on five parameters, each given different weightages—payment enablers (25 percent), payment infrastructure- demand-side factors (10 percent), payment infrastructure-supply-side factors (15 percent), payment performance (45 percent) and consumer centricity (5 percent).
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Uplifting MSMEs & under-served communities
In his reply, Chaudhary outlined the initiatives undertaken by the government, the RBI and the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) to support MSMEs and under-served communities.
The initiatives stated in the reply include promotion of low-value BHIM-UPI transactions among others.
Earlier this year, the Union cabinet approved the Incentive Scheme for promotion of low-value BHIM-UPI transactions Person to Merchant (P2M), under which 0.15 percent of incentive will be provided to small merchants for transactions up to Rs. 2,000, the minister said.
The purpose is to encourage small merchants to accept UPI payments.
Chaudhary said digital payments have also played a critical role in uplifting under-served and un-served communities by providing them with a financial footprint that can be used to assess their credit worthiness in the absence of traditional documents.
“Digital platforms like UPI have enabled citizens including small vendors and rural users to accept digital payments, reducing cash dependency and increasing formal economic participation,” Chaudhary said.
Due to the rise in digitisation of payments, more people can now access formal channels of credit thereby allowing their economic participation.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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