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Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions saw a 118% increase in volume and a 106% rise in value at semi-urban and rural stores in 2023, according to PayNearby’s third pan-India report titled ‘Retail-O-Nomics’.

The use of mPOS (Mobile Point of Sale) technology among small merchants in India has seen a 5% value growth this year.

The retail community in India has witnessed a 9% increase in newly registered retailers, indicating a willingness to participate in the country’s growth through digital transactions. Transactions increased by 10% in volume and value.

In 2023, micro ATM (MATM) and AePS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) cash withdrawals for rural and semi-urban digital counters fell short of expected growth but demand for MATM devices remained robust, with purchases up 17% year-on-year. AePS withdrawals surged by 30-40% during DBT (direct benefit transfer—where subsidies get transferred directly to the beneficiaries) releases, particularly during PM Kisan Yojana credits.

“The surge in GTV (gross transaction value) results from not only the growth in traditional banking and ATM services but also the adoption of products like UPI and MPOS, NTC credit solutions, insurance, ecommerce and more. Despite this, there’s still a huge untapped market needing the right product, pricing, and distribution for easier adoption,” Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD and CEO, PayNearby, said.

The assisted ecommerce segment or meta-commerce, which was up by 91%, emerged as another significant highlight this year, with a network of around 40,000 retailers actively engaged in providing ecommerce services.

Fintech platform PayNearby’s third edition of the ‘Retail-O-Nomics’ report, based on transactions across over a million retail touchpoints, compared business data from January to November 2023 with the same period in 2022.