Telangana tops States in UPI transaction intensity: RBI paper

The usage strength of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions — measured successful per capita measurement presumption — is highest successful Telangana among each the States, according to a caller insubstantial published successful the Reserve Bank of India’s bulletin. The survey utilized PhonePe transaction information arsenic a proxy to measure UPI intensity. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra besides recorded precocious UPI usage intensity.

The emergence of UPI is apt a large origin driving the diminution successful currency request successful the economy, the insubstantial notes. This displacement is evident successful the dependable autumn successful ATM currency withdrawals arsenic a percent of GDP (Chart 1).

The increasing usage of UPI for low-value, mundane transactions is reflected successful the rising stock of peer-to-merchant (P2M) payments, portion the mean worth of a azygous UPI transaction — oregon the ‘ticket size’ — has been declining implicit clip (Chart 2).

The bulk of peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions by measurement autumn wrong the sub-₹500 worth scope (Chart 3).

The RBI insubstantial utilized information from PhonePe — a outgo work that accounts for 58% of full UPI transaction measurement (Chart 4) and 53% of the full transaction worth (Chart 5).

Chart 4

Chart 5

As noted earlier, UPI usage strength is highest successful respective confederate and occidental States, and successful Delhi. The insubstantial attributes this to the beingness of municipality centres, economical hubs, and precocious levels of employment-driven migration successful these regions.

Cash withdrawal strength remains higher successful galore northeastern States, arsenic good arsenic successful Kerala and Goa. Delhi features connected this database too. According to the paper, this could beryllium owed to factors specified arsenic tourism and service-led currency usage, remittance inflows, the continued currency dependence of agrarian areas, and constricted integer infrastructure.

Charts source: Article titled ‘Impact of UPI connected Cash Demand - Evidence from National and Subnational Levels’ by Sakshi Awasthy and Subrat Kumar Seet, published successful the Reserve Bank of India’s September 2025 bulletin.

Data source: RBI, National Payments Corporation of India and the National Statistics Office

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