Bengaluru, Karnataka, India | 30th April 2020: Razorpay, the leading full-stack financial solutions company, launched the fifth edition of ‘The Era of Rising Fintech’ report today.
Historically, the report provided an in-depth study of the FinTech ecosystem by analysing patterns of digital transactions and impact of certain industry innovations on a quarterly basis. This time however, given the circumstances that the world is facing to fight the COVID-19 outbreak, the report shares insights about the impact of the National Lockdown (30 days) on digital payments in India.
So, let’s take a look at what happened during these 30 days. All findings in this report are based on transactions held on Razorpay platform between February 24 to March 23 (Before Lockdown) vs March 24 to April 23 (During Lockdown):
- As people stayed indoors, sectors such as Utilities (Bill Payments), IT & Software and Media & Entertainment saw a growth of 73%, 32% and 25% respectively
- Lockdown led to decline in few sectors – Transactions in Logistics dropped by 96% due to gaps in supply chain. Travel sector declined by 87%, Real Estate by 83%, Food and Beverage (F&B) by 68%, and Grocery by 54%
- During Lockdown, Online donations (transactions) towards NGOs increased by 180%, reflecting overwhelming support from citizens to help the affected
- Transactions in cities like Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Chennai took a hit of 43%, 32% and 25% respectively, in these 30 days
- Karnataka (with 21%), Maharashtra (16%) and Telangana (11%) saw the highest contribution during the lockdown and Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu dropped by 41%, 39% and 26% respectively
- In Payment modes (during lockdown), UPI made the highest contribution of 43% followed by Cards (Debit & Credit) with 39% and Netbanking with 10%. However, compared to the 30 days before lockdown, transactions via UPI, Cards and Netbanking declined by 37%, 30% and 28% respectively
- In UPI Apps, Google Pay contributed the highest with a 46% share followed by PhonePe with 29% and Paytm with 10%. During the lockdown, Paytm saw a drop by 47%, Google Pay by 43% and PhonePe by 32%
- Mobile wallet transactions, particularly in tier-2 cities saw a spike in the last 30 days, owing to increased contribution to PM Cares Fund and cashback offers – Transactions via JioMoney increased by 66%, Amazon Pay by 63% and Paytm by 43%
- Overall digital payment transactions in the country dipped by 30% in 30 days
Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-founder, Razorpay said, “A significant drop of 30% in online payments in the last 30 days is something we are seeing for the first time after demonetisation. In the first two weeks of March before lockdown, the overall online spending increased by about 10% but later saw a dip primarily owing to precautionary measures which people started to take by staying indoors. While COVID-19 continues to create uncertainty on a number of fronts, this pandemic is also a turning point for the fintech industry in many ways, one such being the tremendous adoption in the use of digital payments, especially in Tier 2 & 3 cities, in the last 30 days of lockdown.”
He added, “I believe this is a huge opportunity for fintech companies, some of them may have to reexamine their business models after COVID-19, prioritising growth and customer acquisition over profitability. The fintech industry will be forced to evolve, think big and act boldly which will eventually result in innovations in payments and banking solutions to be able to meet new customer demands and behaviours. I foresee greater collaboration and trust between banks and fintech companies as new digital tools will be integral to any bank’s strategy in the post-COVID-19 world. I’m also expecting mergers and acquisitions to happen post lockdown. Of course we can’t foresee a lot of things, but the new macroeconomic narrative will soon transform into the next normal.”
Razorpay’s growth has been uphill, particularly in the last two years. With a 500% growth in 2019, the company has been witnessing a healthy growth rate of 35% month-on-month. Currently powering payments for over 1,000,000 businesses including the likes of Indigo, BSE, Thomas Cook, Reliance, SpiceJet, Aditya Birla, Sony and OYO, the team plans to increase this count to 1,400,000 by this year.
On another note, while the world is hoping for a quick recovery from the current situation, Razorpay urges every company and every individual to comply with all precautions and measures to ensure the well-being of one and all.
