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Credit Card Growth Soars, Digital Payments Surge in India: RBI Report

The report reveals that credit card numbers have more than doubled to around 10.8 crore by December 2024, up from 5.53 crore in 2019. In contrast, the number of debit cards has seen only a marginal increase

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India has witnessed a significant rise in digital payments over the last decade, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) latest Payment System Report released on Monday. 

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The report reveals that credit card numbers have more than doubled to around 10.8 crore by December 2024, up from 5.53 crore in 2019. In contrast, the number of debit cards has seen only a marginal increase, rising from 80.53 crore in December 2019 to just over 99.09 crore by December 2024.

Digital transactions in India have skyrocketed, with 20,787 crore transactions valued at Rs 2,758 lakh crore recorded in 2024, a 94-fold increase in volume and more than 3.5 times growth in value from 2013. Over the last five years, digital payments grew 6.7 times in volume and 1.6 times in value, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45.9% in volume and 10.2% in value.

The RBI also highlighted efforts to enhance cross-border payments by linking India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with the fast payment systems of other countries. Notably, UPI was linked to Singapore’s PayNow in February 2023. India’s UPI-enabled apps can now facilitate payments via QR codes in several countries, including Bhutan, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the UAE.

RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar noted that the central bank has always aimed to stay ahead of the curve in payment systems, encouraging innovation to make India’s payment infrastructure among the most modern in the world. Retail digital payments have surged from 162 crore transactions in FY 2012-13 to over 16,416 crore transactions in FY 2023-24, marking a nearly 100-fold increase in 12 years.

The RBI’s Digital Payment Index also reflects this growth, with a more than four-fold rise in the last six years, reaching 445.50 as of March 2024 (base 100 as of March 2018).

Also Read: RBI Mandates Multiple Card Networks for Credit Card Issuers

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