Credit card use at PoS higher than at e-com sites in July-Sept: Report

Attributes trend to value-added services such as EMI and BNPL which are allowing consumers to use cards for big-ticket transactions, as opposed to small-ticket earlier

Defying the general trend, credit card transactions at point-of-sale (PoS) machines remained marginally above those on e-commerce platforms in the July-September period, said Worldline’s 'India Digital Payments Report’.

According to the report, the number of credit card swipes at PoS stood at 386.83 million while e-commerce transactions were 338.80 million. In terms of value, consumers transacted Rs 1.31 trillion at PoS and Rs 2.18 trillion online.

Interestingly, despite the general trend of transactions moving from physical to digital, credit card volumes at PoS and e-commerce remain nearly equal in Q3 of calendar 2022, the report said.

In the case of debit cards, PoS transactions stood at 595.4 million, while e-commerce transactions were 311.60 million. PoS terminals processed transactions worth Rs 1.19 trillion, e-commerce processed Rs 681.7 billion.

“Debit card clients typically use their cards for small-ticket transactions at physical touchpoints, but value-added services such as EMI and BNPL are suddenly allowing consumers to use their cards for high-value items and services. Festive season sales and hyperlocal service delivery are also contributing to the development of debit card e-commerce transactions,” the report said.

Meanwhile, UPI person-to-merchant (P2M) and person-to-person (P2P) transactions have emerged as the most preferred modes done digitally, with UPI P2M capturing 42 per cent share in volume of transactions and UPI P2P capturing 65 per cent share in volume of transactions in July-September.

During this period, UPI clocked over 19.65 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 32.5 trillion. Its transactions volume and value almost doubled over last year--it recorded an 88 per cent increase in volume and a 71 per cent increase in value during this period.