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UPI recorded transaction volume of 10.8 bn in 2019: Worldline India Digital Payments Report
DELHI: In 2019, the four forms of online payments — debit cards, credit cards, Immediate Payment Services (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI), recorded a combined transactions volume of over 20 trillion and combined value of over Rs trillion, reveals the annual Worldline India Digital Payments Report.
The report mentions UPI as the most preferred mode of payment in terms of volume and perhaps the fastest product to hit 1 billion transactions-a-month in 2019 since its inception in August 2016.
“It recorded a substantial transaction volume of 10.8 billion in 2019, a YoY increase of 188 per cent. In terms of value, UPI facilitated transactions worth Rs trillion, up 214 per cent from 2018,” reads the report.
In terms of value, IMPS led the roost, followed closely by UPI. It clocked Rs trillion, up 41 per cent from 2018. In 2019, it on-boarded 165 banks under its ecosystem bringing the total number of banks providing IMPS services to the customers of 559 banks by end of 2019.
Transactions volume passing through Bharat Bill Payment Central Unit (BBPCU) – NPCI recorded a YoY increase of 133 per cent. The transaction value witnessed an increase of 174 per cent, standing at Rs 186.8 billion.
The number of POS terminals deployed by merchant acquiring banks increased to 4.98 million in December 2019 from 3.59 million in December 2018, registering a YoY increase of 39 per cent. RBL bank, HDFC bank, State Bank of India, Axis bank and ICICI bank emerged as top five merchant acquiring banks to deploy POS terminals in 2019.
Grocery, restaurants, petrol stations, apparel stores and speciality retail emerged as the merchant categories with the highest volume and value of transactions in 2019 for Worldline India.
“They accounted for about 62 per cent volume of transactions and about 39 per cent value of transactions. It is interesting to note that while jewellery stores accounted for only 1 per cent of total volume of transactions, they accounted for 8 per cent of total value of transactions,” reads the report.
The top 10 states with the highest transactions in 2019 for Worldline India included Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and West Bengal. Top 10 cities with the highest number of transactions in 2019 for Worldline India were Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Gurgaon, Coimbatore and Ernakulam.
Worldline India (WI) is wholly owned by Worldline SA, a leading payments company in Europe that is listed on Euronext Paris. Worldline entered India in 2010 with the acquisition of Venture Infotek followed by the acquisition of MRL Posnet in 2017.
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UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
