As India’s trademark digital payment platform UPI (Unified Payment Interface) recorded a billion transactions in three years, and now harbors a dream of taking it global, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has increased the target for online transactions to 45 billion in financial year 2020, according to local media the Economic Times.
India’s Digital payment transactions include card-based payments, immediate payment service (IMPS), digital wallets, UPI, national automated clearing house (NACH), and Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AePS).
Citing two people aware of the development, the ET report said MEITY plans to tap banks and digital payments firms to achieve the goal, upping their targets for the FY ending March 2020.
Paytm Payments Bank run by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and HDFC Bank have got the highest increase in their targets. While Paytm Payments Bank’s target has been notched up from the earlier 5 billion transactions to 5.9 billion, HDFC will have to ensure 500 million more digital transactions happen on its platform to reach a total of 3 billion transactions.
“Some of the banks reached out to us, expressing the targets given to them should be re-looked at based on their scale of operations. There has been a revision in the break-up of e-transactions among leading platforms as well as taking the total target to 45 billion now as digital payments continue to grow,” a MEITY official who did not wish to be named told ET. Two additional sources confirmed the government changing the target distribution after banks reached out to the ministry, the report added.
