India's digital payments fell 46% in March to Rs 156.5 trillion

BENGALURU: Marking the economic downturn, India's payments fell 46% this March to Rs 156.5 trillion, compared to Rs 292 trillion for the same period last year; as businesses in India transacted less. The lockdown began on March 25 and payments showed the most drastic fall o the last 7 days of the month, said banks.
RTGS (real time gross settlement) transactions -- used by corporates, mid-caps and MSMEs which forms 80% of the payments ecosystem in India -- fell 37% year-over-year to Rs 120.5 trillion. In terms of volumes also RTGS saw a 12% decline to 1.18 crore transactions.
March ATM withdrawals have also fallen 13% year-over-year to Rs 2.51 lakh crore. In terms of volume of transactions, decline has been sharper at 62% to 54.71 crore this March from Rs 89 crore last year. Showing that people are preferring to withdraw higher amounts as average ticket size of withdrawal was Rs 4,587 this March compared to Rs 3,235 last year.
Since RBI started publishing micro-ATM withdrawals only this February, last year's comparable is not available. So, month-on-month, cash withdrawals at micro-ATMs fell 11% to Rs 11,201 crore in March, compared to February. In terms of volumes also there was a 12% decline to 3.4 crore and banks said - this is indicative of a slump in rural areas as micro-ATMs are primarily used by banking correspondents to cater to rural customers.
NACH -- which handles e-mandates insurance, advance tax, EMI for loans -- saw a 24% year-on year fall to Rs 1.31 lakh crore from Rs 1.63 lakh crore. Banks said this could be due to a number of reasons such as non-payment of premium, EMIs, tax and no-new takers for loans and insurance.
ECS -- which is slightly similar to NACH in facilitating electronic clearing and auto-debits -- did not have comparable year-over-year numbers. But for March, ECS transactions fell 11% to Rs 7,951 crore from Rs 8,889 crore in February; and in terms of volume dipped to 12.9 crore from 14 crore month-on-month.
Indians have drastically cut back on card usage; with payments falling to Rs 1.15 lakh crore this March from Rs 4 lakh crore last year. The number of card swipes has also fallen to 53.5 crore from 146 crore previously. Month-on-month also card payments saw a 12% decline.
Month-on-month, debit card usage at PoS machines fell 25% to Rs 27,238 crore this March showing Indians are using their cards less often at stores; while credit card usage at PoS declined 20% to Rs 26,656 crore in March.
Debit-card usage for e-commerce, online payments, etc fell 18.5% to Rs 65,303 crore in March compared to February; while credit card usage online fell 17% to Rs 23,918 crore.
Wallets saw a 22% decline year-on-year to Rs 14,461 crore this March. TOI earlier reported the economic impact of the lockdown is being reflected in a sharp drop in retail interbank transfers under the Immediate Payment System (IMPS) and UPI for the month of April. Where IMPS transactions halved to 12.2 crore in April from 24.7 crore in February and UPI transactions dropped to 100 crore from 132 crore for the same period.