According to the recently released annual report of the Reserve Bank of India, the number of transactions which were made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in 2018-19, exceeded the number of payments made on debit cards during the same period, reports Mint.

UPI transactions, at 5.35 billion, were approximately 1.2 times more in number than debit card transactions, which stood at 4.41 billion. The data points to phenomenal growth in adoption of UPI by consumers, as the system had only been released three years ago.

In 2017-18, there were only 915.2 million transactions on UPI, while simultaneously there had been 3.34 billion debit card transactions. Interestingly, the number of ATMs fell from 222,247 to 221,703 in the same period.

In what may further keep consumers away from cash and push them towards online payments, the central bank also plans to make its National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) system available 24x7 from December onwards.