Digital payments and financial services platform PhonePe drove a cumulative 6.63 billion transactions in Q4 2021, a 26 per cent quarter over quarter increase, it has said in a report.
The fintech platform on Friday announced key digital payment trends from PhonePe Pulse Q4 (October - December) 2021.
According to the report, the total payments value (TPV) of transactions processed also grew 26 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to $155 Billion, mirroring the growth in the number of transactions.
Money transfers with UPI reached 2.72 billion while merchant payments registered a 37 per cent QoQ growth hitting 3.15 billion transactions during the quarter.
25 million merchants were digitised across 15,700 towns and villages in India during the quarter, it said.
“Further, the trend of digital payments becoming a pan-India habit which was observed in Q3, continued in Q4 as well with 722 out of 726 districts in the country clocking positive growth in the number of registered users and digital transactions,” it said.
Maharashtra crosses 1 billion transactions
Geographically, Maharashtra became the first State to cross one billion transactions in any given quarter, recording 1.01 billion transactions in Q2 2021, registering a 27 per cent growth.
Karnataka was a close second reporting a 24 per cent QoQ growth and driving 932 million transactions.
Goa (71 per cent), Andaman and Nicobar (41 per cent), Assam (37 per cent) were the top three States and union territories in terms of QoQ transaction growth.
Karthik Raghupathy, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations at PhonePe said, “As predicted in our Q3 report, we saw the merchant transactions register robust QoQ growth driven by the holiday season, festivities and multiple e-commerce shopping sales.”
PhonePe Pulse
“The data and insights from Pulse clearly indicate that the fundamental shift we are seeing in consumer behavior towards contactless payments is here to stay. As digital payments become an ingrained habit for both customers and merchants, we expect to continue seeing a surge in volumes across use cases for Q1 2022 as well. We are excited to see what interesting insights and trends the next quarter will unveil,” Raghupathy said.
Launched in September 2021, PhonePe Pulse is an interactive website with data, insights and trends on digital payments in the country. The website showcases more than 2000 crore transactions by consumers on an interactive map of India.