It may not be the way we expected, but the digital payments industry in India is making long strides rapidly anyway. The subcontinent, this time, stays abreast of the global pace as well. According to the research firm MarketIntelligenceData, the global mobile payments transactions were valued at $3714.5 billion in 2019, and are expected to hit $12,407.5 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 23.8 percent. Needless to say, the pandemic has been a strong catalyst.

India sure is keeping up with this trend. According to a research report by RedSeer Consulting, the current 160 million unique mobile payment user-base is expected to multiply by five times to reach nearly 800 million by 2025. The report also says that the total value of digital transactions in India is expected to grow over three-folds to Rs.7092 trillion by 2025. This growth will be largely driven by government policies around financial inclusion, and growing digitization in the retail markets.

It’s a sure bet that the digital payments industry has a great epoch ahead. A recent report from Mastercard validates the same. According to the

data divulged by Mastercard, the company has witnessed a 19 percent increase in the number of contactless cards issued in the first quarter of 2020 when contrasted with the quarter before that - Q4 of 2019. With 16 percent, Bangalore has a commendable edge over other cities as far as digital transactions are concerned, followed by Delhi and NCR that has 12 percent, Chennai that has seven percent and Mumbai has six percent share. The contactless transactions in these cities are majorly driven by four market categories: food stores, restaurants, fuel and drug stores. Mastercard reveals that food stores, restaurants and bars and gas stations are the only category with more than one million transactions in each month of the first quarter of the current financial year.