At 48 billion, India accounts for largest number of real-time transactions in the world

The real-time payments helped India unlock $16.4 billion of additional economic output in 2021, equivalent to 0.56 per cent of formal GDP

PGurus Newsdesk

April 26, 2022

The real-time payments helped India unlock $16.4 billion of additional economic output in 2021, equivalent to 0.56 per cent of formal GDP

India surges ahead as the world’s leader in real-time payments boosting economic growth: ACI Worldwide report

According to the third edition of Prime Time for Real-Time 2022, published by ACI Worldwide in partnership with GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), real-time payments are forecast to boost India’s GDP by $45.9 billion in 2026 as real-time payments transaction volumes are set to exceed 206 billion by that time.

The real-time payments helped India unlock $16.4 billion of additional economic output in 2021, equivalent to 0.56 percent of formal GDP.

In 2021, India accounted for the largest number of real-time transactions at 48.6 billion, almost threefold that of China (18 billion transactions) and almost seven times greater than the combined real-time payments volume of the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany (7.5 billion), the report said.

Ankur Saxena, Head of India and South Asia, ACI Worldwide, a software company providing real-time payment solutions, said, “India’s craving for cash may be plummeting, but there is still a great deal more to do. It is time to accelerate our efforts and expand this impact beyond the top tier metropolitan areas and replicate our success for the benefit of the entire country.”

The widespread adoption of real-time payments resulted in estimated cost savings of $12.6 billion for Indian businesses and consumers in 2021.

The growing acceptance of UPI-based mobile payment apps and QR code payments among merchants, combined with the increased use of digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped real-time payments secure 31.3 percent of total payments transaction volume last year, the report showed.

With consumers increasingly shifting from cash to mobile-based real-time payments, skipping payment cards, the real-time payments’ share of the total payments volume is likely to rise to over 70 percent in 2026.

This will result in net savings for businesses and consumers rising to $92.4 billion in 2026, helping generate an additional $45.9 billion of economic output, equivalent to 1.12 percent of the country’s forecasted GDP.

“By allowing for the transfer of money between parties within seconds rather than days, real-time payments improve overall market efficiencies in the economy,” commented Owen Good, Head of Advisory, Centre for Economic and Business Research.

“Developing nations continue to drive the majority of real-time volume gains, confirming the industry trend of the strongest growth coming from economies with minimal existing electronic payments infrastructure, and therefore heavier reliance on cash,” added Sam Murrant, lead analyst, GlobalData.

“India provides the template for mobile wallet integration with underlying real-time payment systems. Mobile will still be the leading form factor in developed markets,” he noted.

The research shows that governments that advance the real-time modernization of their national payments infrastructure create a win-win situation for all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem: consumers and businesses benefit from fast, frictionless, and hyper-connected payments services, financial institutions future-proof their business in a highly competitive environment by speeding up cloud-first and data-centric modernization, and national governments boost economic growth, reduce the size of their shadow economy and create a fairer financial system for all.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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