RuPay cards are expanding footprint but domestic performance remains muted

RuPay transaction volumes rose marginally during the pandemic, value rose 40 per cent

RuPay may find acceptance in yet another country, as India concluded its tenth session of the India-Oman Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) with the proposal to include RuPay in the gulf country’s card networks. While RuPay has been expanding to other jurisdictions, the National Payments Corporation of India has also made tie-ups with Discover and Diner services to widen the card’s acceptability.

A Business Standard analysis found that on the domestic front, RuPay's performance has been muted. RuPay cards’ transaction volumes increased just 2.4 per cent between 2019-20 and 2021-22. This includes both point of sale transactions and e-commerce transactions. While usage volumes declined in 2020-21, there was a rise in 2021-22. Overall debit card usage volumes exhibited a similar trend, rising 12 per cent between 2020-21 and 2021-22, but declining nearly 11 per cent in 2020-21 compared to the previous year.

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Point of sale transactions using RuPay cards increased 2.6 per cent from 822.59 million in 2019-20 to 843.9 in 2021-22. E-commerce transactions using RuPay cards grew even slower with a 2.2 per cent rise to 672.46 million in 2021-22 from 658.13 million in 2019-20.

In terms of value, RuPay transactions registered a 40 per cent increase to Rs 2.5 trillion in 2021-22. In value terms, e-commerce transactions grew faster with the average monthly transaction volume increasing to Rs 8,049 crore in 2021-22, from Rs 5,087 crore in 2019-20—a 58.2 per cent increase. On other hand, PoS transactions increased from Rs 9,557 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 12,393 crore in 2021-22.

RuPay’s average ticket size of transactions has been rising for the last five years. In 2017-18, the average transaction size for RuPay cards’ POS transactions was Rs 1,062.4. It increased to Rs 1,762.2 in 2021-22.

The average transaction ticket size for e-commerce had increased from Rs 798.1 to Rs 1,436. The average ticket size for all debit cards was higher at Rs 1,963 in 2021-22. The average ticket size for credit cards was Rs 3,421.