When my colleague Abhishek Waghmare discussed data on debit card usage with me as he researched his piece on retail payments in India, something struck me that has probably also struck many of you - I can't remember the last time I went to an ATM. I also use my debit card much less in shops and restaurants. When he shared this chart, it was clear - debit cards have not recovered from the blow that the pandemic dealt them.
It's not that people aren't getting debit and credit cards; there are now more than 100 million credit cards and nearly one billion debit cards in India, according to RBI statistics (although some individuals have more than one card, while others have none). Registered debit cards grew steadily in the 2000s and 2010s, but have plateaued in recent years, Abhishek finds. The number of credit cards is far lower, but has been growing since the mid-2010s, doubling every five years, he finds, and did not experience any pandemic hit in their number, at least.
However, they are now clearly marginal players when it comes to retail payments, which is transactions made to buy goods and services. We have data for payments made through India's United Payments Interface (UPI) from November 2019 onwards, when there were 41 million UPI transactions every day compared to 36 million daily transactions using debit cards. By January 2025, there were nearly 550 million daily transactions using UPI, and fewer than four million using debit cards.
Of the five digital modes of retail payments that Abhishek looked at - debit cards, credit cards, UPI, National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) - debit cards are the only mode in which the value of daily transactions has actually declined over time as well.
The share of adults with a debit card in India was already low compared to other countries, Abhishek finds. The emergence of UPI appears to have cut short their usage quite comprehensively. If the UPI system were to change - say, with the introduction of transaction fees - that could alter their prospects, but for now, the big shift in India's digital payments landscape does appear to be the death of the debit card.
