UPI usage at bars, food joints rises in August; discretionary spending up

While discretionary spending through UPI increases, at the same time, more than 20 million AutoPay mandates continue to be revoked each month, mainly due to insufficient balances

Spending through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in August indicated a modest rebound in discretionary areas such as bars, pubs, and restaurants, data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) showed, according to a report by NDTV Profit.

 

Within the food and beverage segment, overall transactions grew 6 per cent month-on-month to ₹49,800 crore. Payments at liquor shops and similar outlets reached ₹6,100 crore, a 3.3 per cent rise from July's decline to ₹5,920 crore. Restaurants and dining establishments saw spending climb 7 per cent after two months of weak growth, while fast-food establishments registered a 5 per cent increase, with transactions totalling ₹14,500 crore, the report added.

 

 

20 mn AutoPay revocation every month

 

While the increase in discretionary spending through UPI has shown an uptick, a Business Standard report noted that more than 20 million UPI AutoPay mandates are also cancelled every month, largely due to insufficient balances in customer accounts. The AutoPay enables users to generate a recurring e-mandate using any UPI payments application. It allows users to set timely mandates to pay periodically.

 

These cancellations span recurring payments such as OTT subscriptions, loan repayments, investments, utilities and similar automated transactions.

 

“The revocations stand at 20 million every month…There is a debit execution failure which is because there is not enough money in the user’s bank account. There are many cases of micro investment mandates, like for an SIP or loan repayments,' a source told Business Standard.

 

However, despite these revocations, the AutoPay segment continues to expand on a yearly basis. NPCI figures show that in July 2025, remitter banks registered over 50 million new AutoPay mandates—nearly double the 26 million logged in July 2024. In the same month, mandate executions more than doubled to reach 808 million from 392 million the previous year.

 

Overall UPI transactions

Recently, UPI also crossed a historic threshold, facilitating over 20 billion transactions—equivalent to ₹24.85 trillion in value—in August 2025.

 

However, in terms of value, transactions were down marginally by 1 per cent from ₹ 25.08 trillion in July.