UPI in Oct: Digital gold, clothing purchases soar, debt collections pick up
20 Nov 2025, 01:57 PMTeam Head&Tale
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Digital gold purchase via the UPI (unified payments interface) increased over 60% to Rs 2,290.36 crore in October as compared to Rs 1,410.18 crore in the previous month, helped by the festival season in the country.
The overall value of the merchant category-wise purchases via UPI surged to Rs 8.25 lakh crore in October across 13,027.56 million transactions as compared to Rs 7.19 lakh crore in September across 12,366.97 million transactions with groceries and supermarkets accounting for the biggest share, according to data released by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Groceries and supermarkets recorded over 3,273.2 million transactions worth Rs 76,073.21 crore in October versus 3,126.3 million transactions worth Rs 66,408.93 crore in the previous month.
Notably, the value of debt collections via the UPI rose to Rs 50,614.85 crore during the month after dropping to its lowest in September to Rs 48,457.21 crore since June 2023.
Interestingly, purchases of different clothing via the UPI saw a spike during the month.
Mens and womens clothing shops recorded 105.4 million transactions in UPI volume worth Rs 13,418.87 crore in October versus 86.5 million worth Rs 10,756.6 crore in September; men's, womens and childrens uniforms and commercial clothing saw 89.1 million transactions worth Rs 10,082.93 crore versus 67.3 million worth Rs 6,641.92 crore in September; and family clothing shops category witnessed 72.7 million transactions worth Rs 6,713.91 crore against 57.1 million worth Rs 4,835 crore in September.
Volume and value both dropped for online marketplaces during the month. Online marketplaces witnessed 126.2 million transactions worth Rs 8,350 crore via UPI payments during the month as compared to 141.2 million transactions worth Rs 10,049.11 crore.
Fast food restaurants recorded 1,357.9 million transactions worth Rs 16,798.24 crore in October; and eating places and restaurants saw 1,294 million UPI transactions worth Rs 22,168.74 crore.
Service stations registered 657 million transactions worth Rs 34,040 crore across during the month; utilities recorded 157.4 million transactions worth Rs 22,905.11 crore; and telecommunications logged 829 million transactions worth Rs 22,168.74 crore.
Electronic shops saw 86.3 million transactions worth Rs 12,175.87 crore in October. Government services category recorded 105.9 million UPI transactions worth Rs 9,653.39 crore.
Drug stores and pharmacies recorded 349.4 million transactions worth Rs 12,611 crore in October.
Overall UPI volumes for the month of October hit the highest at 20.7 billion transactions worth Rs 27.28 lakh crore, with peer-to-peer (P2P) payments accounting for 7,673.36 million transactions valued at Rs 19.02 lakh crore.
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