Digital Spending Sees 10% Uptick, Travel Dips By 30% As Razorpay Takes Stock Of Covid-19 Impact

Key takeaways

Digital spending in India has increased by 10% as consumer habits shift during the pandemic.

UPI, netbanking, and wallet payments are the most popular payment methods, with UPI seeing nearly 20% growth.

Grocery purchases have surged by 9% due to panic buying amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.

The travel and hospitality sector has experienced a significant 30% decline in online spending.

Online transactions have varied by city, with notable increases in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Pune.

As it celebrates its five-year milestone, Razorpay has shared some insights on the digital payments landscape in India as it braces for the impact of coronavirus. Based on transactions that happened on its platform in the last 50 odd days (February to Mid-March), here are some key observations made:

Digital spending

With consumer habits changing as people remain at home, overall digital spending has seen a 10% uptick from February to March. The report put a spotlight on how UPI, netbanking, and wallet payments have grown since the coronavirus outbreak, emerging as the top three modes of payments during this time.

While UPI payments have grown almost 20%, netbacking and wallet payments have climbed by about 12% and 10%, respectively. According to the report, panic buying of essentials has seen groceries making its way to the top with a growth of 9%.

Even city-wise, the number of online transactions has increased in Ahmedabad (11%), followed by Hyderabad (7%) and Pune (5%). Interestingly, transactions in Bangalore and Delhi have dropped.

Travel & Hospitality

The travel and hospitality sector typically account for at least 10% of online transactions on Razorpay. However, with the coronavirus outbreak and associated travel advisories, online travel spending in India have declined by as much as 30%.

Razorpay’s Business Continuity Plan

As the effects of coronavirus continue to play out in the digital payments industry, the company has been preparing to ensure that organisations’ businesses are not affected, and that they are able to maintain business continuity.

This includes audited access management to ensure that data is protected irrespective of employees working from home, as well as ensuring system availability, by deploying entire infrastructure on AWS, which scales automatically based on demand.

Outlook

As attested by Harshil Mathur, CEO and co-founder of Razorpay, despite the increase in the demand for digital payments across a few sectors, overall consumer spending may go down with limited spending power of people in quarantine. This could have a “lasting (negative) impact.”