Essential Points of the Digital Payment Index
- RBI decided to publish the Digital Payments Index (DPI) semi-annually from March 2021 onward with a lag of 4 months. Therefore, from 2021 RBI started releasing DPI for March and September in the months of July and January, respectively.
- The Base period of the RBI-DPI has been set as March 2018, at a score of 100.
- The DPI index comprises five broad parameters to evaluate the penetration of digital payments in the country.
The parameters are as follows and each of these has Sub Parameters consisting of measurable indicators:
| Parameter | Weightage |
Sub Parameters |
| Payment Enablers |
25% |
Internet, mobile, Aadhaar, bank accounts, participants, and merchants |
| Payment Infrastructure (Demand Side) |
10% |
Debit cards, credit cards, prepaid payment instruments, customers registered–mobile and internet banking, and FASTags |
| Payment Infrastructure (Supply Side) |
15% |
Bank branches, business correspondents, ATMs, PoS (point of sale) terminals, QR (quick response) codes, and intermediaries |
| Payment Performance |
45% |
Digital payment systems (volume), digital payment systems (value), unique users, paper clearing, currency in circulation, and cash withdrawals |
| Consumer Centricity |
5% |
Awareness and education, declines, complaints, frauds, and system downtime |
RBI – Digital Payments Index
The digitization of the market generated the need for online payment and banking transactions. The onset of digital payment fulfilled the need for a convenient payment method both for the customer and the retailer. In a country of 1.39 billion people, around 71 billion digital payments were recorded in 2022. Estimating the future growth of digital payment, RBI formulated a collective Digital Payment Index (RBI-DPI) in 2018. In order to gauge the extent of digital payments taking place across India. Multiple parameters have been considered to evaluate digital payment modes to construct the Digital payment Index. During Covid-19 Pandemic 2019, there was a significant rise in the RBI-DPI index, indicating the surge of Digital payments in the country.
The Digital Payment Index (DPI), released in September 2021, shows an increase of 39.64% as 304.06 DPI against 217.59 in the same month. As per the index for March 2022, DPI is at 349.30 from 304.06 for September 2021.