India’s payments data flag a retail pickup

By Ian Lim

One of the quirks of #India’s economic data is the relative lack of official figures covering household consumption. But infrastructure digitization is providing insights in near-real time. We’ve charted daily payments data, and it’s showing a strengthening consumer trend.

Aggregate payments recorded a small decline in August, though this is a common seasonal trend in India – and it was a less substantive drop than seen in previous years. In September and October, spending has picked up. To prove this alternative data set’s correlative power, we’ve also charted how it tracks the retail trade component of the Service Production Index (one of the few official retail trade indicators available; its historical data starts only in April 2025).

This correlation also reflects the successful adoption of cashless payment platforms that go beyond debit and credit cards, such as the Unified Payments Interface. UPI, a public-sector initiative, is the nation’s most commonly used platform – growing from an average monthly transaction value of about INR 3 trillion in Q3 2020 to nearly INR 30 trillion today.

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