UPI, mobile wallet, card transactions jump to pre-COVID-19 levels: Report

The rise in online transactions can be credited to opening up of e-commerce for non-essential goods and increased number of e-payments for utility, mobile and grocery bills

Moneycontrol News

June 30, 2020 / 12:22 PM IST

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Transactions via online payment platforms and credit and debit cards have touched pre-COVID-19 levels in June after nearly 60 percent slump in April due to the coronavirus-led lockdown. The trajectory can largely be credited to opening up of e-commerce for non-essential goods and increased number of e-payments for utility, mobile and grocery bills.

Overall, sectors like aviation, fashion and apparel, movies and dining continued to lag, while over-the-top (OTT) entertainment services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., and education platforms led the recovery. In Tier II and III towns and cities, pharmaceuticals and consumer electronics have pushed revival.

Transactions via the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI)-run United Payment Interface (UPI) platform, mobile wallets and bank cards saw sharp V-shape recovery in June, The Economic Times reported.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed that till June 28, UPI saw 1.42 billion transactions worth Rs 2.31 lakh crore – the highest single-month volume ever recorded by the platform. It is also the steepest month-on-month increase from April’s 990 million transactions worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

The coronavirus pandemic and resultant lockdown “accelerated the shift to digital” Ambarish Kenghe, senior director, product, Google Pay – India’s leading UPI platform, told the paper. Google Pay said online recharges and bill payments jumped 180 percent following the lockdown.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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