(PTI)
Concerted efforts by the Reserve Bank to move to a non/less-cash economy by pushing digital payments have begun to pay rich dividends as the volume of such payments has jumped manifold in the past five years, the latest data from the central bank showed.
Between 2015-16 and 2019-20, digital payments have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 55.1 per cent – from 593.61 crore in the year to March 2016 to 3,434.56 crore in the year to March 2020. In absolute terms, value has grown from Rs 920.38 lakh crore to Rs 1,623.05 lakh crore during this period, clipping at an annual compounded rate of 15.2 per cent.
Giving a year-wise data, in 2016-17 digital payments jumped to 969.12 crore from 593.61 crore in the previous year in volume terms, while in value the same rose to Rs 1,120.99 lakh crore. Similarly, the numbers continued to scale new peaks with volume growing to 1,459.01 crore and value jumping to Rs 1,369.86 lakh crore in 2017-18.
Come 2018-19, the numbers clipped at a faster pace with volume jumping to 2,343.40 crore transactions while the value rose to Rs 1,638.52 lakh crore. However, FY20 saw a massive spike in volumes over the previous year to 3,434.56 crore but in value slipped down to Rs 1,623.05 lakh crore, which can be attributed to the steep fall in the overall economy and the massive job losses, forcing people to spend less and preserve more cash.
