Digital payments were particularly useful during Covid-19, PM Modi tweeted as he lauded the achievement

India's digital payments platform, the United Payments Interface (UPI), recorded over 6 billion transactions in the month of July. This is the highest-ever monthly figure since the UPI was launched in 2016.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded it as "an outstanding achievement" and said that digital payments were particularly useful during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"This is an outstanding accomplishment. It indicates the collective resolve of the people of India to embrace new technologies and make the economy cleaner. Digital payments were particularly helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic," Prime Minister Modi wrote on Twitter.

He was replying to a tweet by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who shared the link to a Business Standard article reporting the landmark.

UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.62 trillion, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the platform, the Business Standard reported on Monday.

According to the report, the volume of transactions was up 7.16 per cent and value increased 4.76 per cent month-on-month. Year-on-year (YoY), the volume of transactions nearly doubled while value of transactions was up 75 per cent, the report added.

The National Payments Corporation of India describes UPI as a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.

NPCI conducted a pilot launch with 21 member banks in April 2016. Banks started to upload their UPI enabled Apps on Google Play store from August 2016 onwards.