Digital Payments grew 30.19% during the Financial Year 2020-21

Last Updated03/08/2021

The Reserve Bank of India's digital payments index (DPI) in March 2021 rose to 270.59, compared to 207.84 for March 2020, indicating a robust growth in digital transactions during the COVID-hit year in the country.
The RBI-DPI index has demonstrated significant growth in index representing the rapid adoption and deepening of digital payments across the country in recent years
Increase in cashless transactions depicts the rise in the number of Indians adopting online payment methods to make their payments.

Digital Payments Index (DPI):

The central bank announced the construction of the composite Reserve Bank of India (RBI) – Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) with March 2018 as the base period to assess the extent of digitization of payments in the country.
The DPI for March 2019 and March 2020 work out to 153.47 and 207.84 respectively, indicating appreciable growth.
It will be published on RBI’s website on a semi-annual basis from March 2021 onwards with a lag of 4 months.
The RBI-DPI comprises of 5 broad parameters that enable measurement of deepening and penetration of digital payments in the country over different time periods.
These parameters are –

Each of these parameters have sub-parameters which, in turn, consist of various measurable indicators.

Digital payments in India have seen a rapid increase in the adoption of digital platforms lately.
According to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in December 2020 around 223 crores of transactions worth 4.16 lakh crores of rupees were made as compared to that of 221 crores of transactions worth 3.9 lakh crores of rupees in November 2020.
This clearly shows that the digital transactions in the country are increasing day by day.
Therefore, it is essential to measure its growth and launch respective initiatives to support the growth.