There was a sharp jump in March, likely due to last-minute tax collections and payment rush towards various income tax-saving instruments.
In the aftermath of demonetisation in November, several within the government had expected people returning to older habits of using cash instead of digital transactions once the supply of notes in circulation grew. However, latest provisional data from the Reserve Bank of India show that after falling in January and February, the value of electronic transactions still remain elevated. There was a sharp jump in March, likely due to last-minute tax collections and payment rush towards various income tax-saving instruments.
In April, the sixth month since the Centre’s decision, electronic transactions worth Rs 1,09,58,250 crore were conducted, compared with Rs 94,00,420 crore in November, Rs 1,04,05,530 crore in December, Rs 97,01,140 crore in January, Rs 92,59,450 crore in February, and Rs 1,49,58,910 crore in March. For March, a senior economist told The Indian Express, 15-20 per cent of the tax collections happen in the last month of the financial year.
This trend was also reflective across the various electronic payment tools such as National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), prepaid payment instruments, debit and credit cards at point of sale (PoS) machines, and mobile banking.
During April, NEFT transactions worth Rs 12,15,620 crore were conducted. In November, the month when demonetisation was announced, there were NEFT transactions worth Rs 8,80,780 crore, which grew to Rs 11,53,760 crore in December and then fell to Rs 11,35,510 crore and Rs 10,87,790 crore in January and February, respectively, before sharply rising to Rs 16,29,450 crore in March. The RBI said on Monday that to ensure better service for customers, it would introduce an additional 11 settlement batches of NEFT at half-hourly intervals from July 10, beginning from 8.30 am till 6.30 pm to take the total number of half-hourly settlement batches during the day will increase to 23.
The government’s push to the National Payment Corporation of India-run Unified Payments Interface (UPI) through the BHIM app has also shown in the growth in amount of UPI transactions in the past six months. In April, there were Rs 2,200 crore worth of UPI transactions, according to the RBI data, down from Rs 2,390 crore in March, but higher than Rs 1,900 crore, Rs 1,660 crore, Rs 700 crore, and Rs 90 crore in February, January, December, and November, respectively. According to data compiled by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, since the launch of BHIM on December 30, the app registered transactions worth Rs 1,406.89 crore till March 27.
The prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), which include mobile wallets, has shown a deviation from the general trend during the six month period and has continued to grow at steady pace after a fall in February over January. During April, transactions worth Rs 2,230 crore were registered on PPIs issued by eight non-bank issuers for goods and services transactions only.
In March, there were transactions worth Rs 2,150 crore, while in February, there were Rs 1,320 crore worth of transactions, Rs 2,130 crore in January, Rs 2,100 crore in December, Rs 1,870 crore in November.
For debit and credit cards, Rs 41,170 crore worth of transactions were conducted in April. In November, transactions worth Rs 35,240 crore were conducted, while in December, January, and February and March transactions worth Rs 52,220 crore, Rs 48,120 crore, Rs 39,150 crore, and Rs 41,620 crore were conducted, respectively.
-Indian Express
No comments:
Post a Comment