Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad lead digital merchant payments; account for over 40% transactions in 2019: Report

New Delhi: Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad ranked as the top three cities in terms of peer-to-merchant digital payments in the country and cumulatively accounted for over 40 percent of such transactions in 2019, a report by Razorpay said on Tuesday. According to the Razorpay report, digital transactions are estimated to have grown by 338 percent from 2018 to 2019. Bengaluru accounted for 23.31 percent of the peer-to-mechant transactions, while Delhi contributed 10.44 percent and Hyderabad 7.61 percent of such transactions in 2019, as per the fourth edition of ‘The Era of Rising Fintech’ report. Karnataka saw the highest adoption of digital payments (26.64 percent), followed by Maharashtra (15.92 percent) and Delhi NCR (13.01 percent), it added. [caption id=“attachment_772733” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Interestingly, the usage of cards declined to 46 percent in 2019 from 56 percent in 2018, and net banking to 11 percent from 23 percent in 2018. UPI, on the other hand, grew to 38 per cent in 2019 from 17 per cent in the previous year. Among UPI, Google Pay contributed 59 percent, PhonePe contributed 26 per cent, followed by Paytm (7 percent) and BHIM (6 percent) in digital transactions in 2019. Amazon Pay was the most preferred wallet among consumers (33 per cent), followed by Ola Money (17 percent) in 2019. Owing to the growth of UPI, the share of wallets continues to decline despite the increase in the number of transactions, the report said. The top three sectors in digital payment adoption for 2019 were food and beverage (26 percent), financial services (12.5 percent) and Transportation (8 percent), the report said. “The year 2019 was buzzing for the fintech sector with the adoption of new digital payment modes and bringing the digital currency to the mainstream. And the last six months saw a tremendous shift in the consumption patterns of businesses and consumer preferences of digital payments,” Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay, said.