Magnification of Digital Payments
Many initiatives taken by the government and the regulatory body have propelled replacing cash transactions with digital transactions, such as the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan Bank Accounts), Aadhaar-based identification and mobile penetration, the launch of platforms like UPI, mobile banking, and plenty of payment gateways options available.
The rise in the DPI index can be understood from the following series of RBI-DPI indexes:
|
Period |
RBI-DPI Index |
| March 2018 (Base) |
100 |
| March 2019 |
153.47 |
| September 2019 |
173.49 |
| March 2020 |
207.84 |
| September 2020 |
217.74 |
| March 2021 |
270.59 |
| September 2021 |
304.06 |
| March 2022 |
349.30 |
India is gearing up to become a cashless society, with consumers abandoning traditional ways of payment like cash and card. Digital Payment will continue to expand in the country, thereby improving faster liquidity flow in the market and cutting down the cash flow management.
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.