In 2021, India led the real-time payment transactions in the world with 48.6 billion such transactions. This represents over 40 per cent of the global transactions, says the report ‘Prime Time for Real-Time 2022’ released by ACI Worldwide, real-time payments solutions provider, in association with GlobalData, an analytics firm, and the US-based Centre for Economics and Business Research.
The number of real-time transactions in India was 2.6X higher than that of China. It was seven times higher than the combined real-time payments volume of the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and France.
According to the report, real-time payments helped India unlock an additional $16.4 billion of economic output, which was 0.56 per cent of the formal GDP. Last year, as much as 31.3 per cent of transactions were done through real-time instruments.
The report cites the pandemic outbreak as one of the main reasons for the adoption of digital payments in India. Increasing penetration of the internet and smartphones have accelerated the growth further. The growth had reflected in the UPI transactions data as well. In India, currently, PhonePe and Google Pay dominate the UPI sector. They together rule over 84% of the UPI market. Other players include Paytm, Amazon Pay and WhatsApp Pay.
As per the report, digital payments in India would grow at a CAGR of 33.5 per cent by 2026, making the country one of the global leaders in the real-time market.
