Business
Digital Payments Make Up 99.8% Of All Transactions In H1 2025: RBI
New Delhi: India’s digital payments landscape continues its rapid expansion, with digital transactions accounting for 99.8 per cent of the total payment volume and 97.7 per cent of the total transaction value in the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) continues to dominate the digital ecosystem, accounting for 85 per cent of transactions by volume and 9 per cent by value in the first six months of the year.
During this time, the UPI system handled 10,637 crore transactions, valued at Rs 143.3 lakh crore, compared to Rs 117 lakh crore in the previous year. According to the RBI, UPI’s effectiveness, round-the-clock accessibility, and user-friendliness continue to make it the most popular retail fast payment system in India.
On the other hand, although it only made up 0.1 per cent of the total volume, the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, which facilitates high-value transfers, held the largest share in terms of value at 69 per cent. In 2024, there were 29.5 crore RTGS transactions, up from 14.8 crore in 2019, and the transaction value increased from Rs 1,388.7 lakh crore to Rs 1,938.2 lakh crore.
RTGS handled 16.1 crore transactions totalling Rs 1,079.2 lakh crore in the first half of 2025 alone. The RBI explained the divergent trends in volume and value shares by pointing out that RTGS mainly handles large-value transfers with a minimum transaction threshold of Rs 2 lakh, whereas UPI processes a large number of small-value transactions. Of the Rs 1,572 lakh crore in total payment transactions that took place during that time, Rs 1,536 lakh crore were handled digitally.
The Clearing Corporation of India Limited’s (CCIL) large-value payment systems saw growth as well. The number of CCIL transactions increased from 35 lakh in 2019 to 45 lakh in 2024, and their value increased from Rs 1,270 lakh crore to Rs 2,780 lakh crore. CCIL recorded 28.8 lakh transactions totalling Rs 1,734 lakh crore in the first half of 2025.
The RBI data demonstrates how UPI and other innovations, along with persistent efforts to encourage cashless transactions throughout the economy, have led to India’s payments ecosystem becoming overwhelmingly digital.
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Target faces a new boycott over ICE response as retailer presses ahead with turnaround
A major teachers’ union is calling for its members to skip Target when buying back-to-school supplies, the latest twist in a series of boycotts that have targeted the big-box retailer as its turnaround shows signs of life, CNBC has learned.
The AFT, or American Federation of Teachers, passed a resolution Thursday that calls on its 1.8 million members and others to shop at local stores and not at Target, saying the company did not respond adequately to the surge of federal immigration enforcement in the retailer’s hometown of Minneapolis this winter. Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the operation.
The labor union, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, plans to urge a similar resolution at AFL-CIO’s convention in Minneapolis this summer and at conventions held by other organizations, including the NAACP and LULAC, AFT President Randi Weingarten said.
Target declined to comment specifically on the AFT’s resolution but said in a statement that it has “a longstanding commitment to strengthening the communities we serve,” including donating 5% of profits since the company’s founding and offering a discount to educators as part of a teacher appreciation program.
Target’s annual sales have declined for the past three years in a row, but the company’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke laid out an ambitious plan earlier this month to refresh its stores, add more enticing merchandise and return to sales growth. The retailer said it expects net sales to rise about 2% this fiscal year compared with the prior year and anticipates sales will grow every quarter.
It is unclear if and how much the AFT’s call for a back-to-school boycott could hurt Target, which is trying to win back customers. Earlier this month, Atlanta area pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant announced the end of a yearlong boycott of the company, called Target Fast, which had started because of the company’s rollback of major diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
At a press conference, Bryant said Target has demonstrated its commitment to the Black community with investments in Black businesses and donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Yet other activists leading a separate boycott, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, have said they continue to call for shoppers to steer clear of Target.
The AFT previously supported and participated in the Target boycott over its DEI rollback.
The retailer has attributed some of its sales losses to backlash to its DEI decision, along with other factors including company missteps with merchandise, a weaker store experience and softer discretionary spending.
At an investor meeting in Minneapolis in early March, Fiddelke stressed that it’s “a new chapter for Target.” He said the company is “doing the work to build connection with new guests, deepen relationships with existing guests and earn back trust with guests we’ve disappointed.”
In a separate email to Target employees earlier this month, Fiddelke highlighted how the retailer is putting its strategy into action, including through its move to cut prices on more than 3,000 items and the opening of its 2,000th store. He said Target has made progress with winning back trust, too, noting the end of the Target Fast boycott.
He said Target has had “ongoing conversations with the organizers” of the boycott, who have “acknowledged the meaningful contributions Target has made, and will continue to make, to the Black community.”
In an interview with CNBC, Weingarten said the AFT’s boycott is focused on what she called Target’s lack of response to the surge of aggressive and violent immigration enforcement in its own backyard. Weingarten said the AFT sent a letter to Target and met with Target staff to encourage them to speak up before the union moved to pass the resolution.
“Target was negotiating with our colleagues in the civil rights community for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said. “They could have very easily dealt with both [concerns about DEI and immigration enforcement] and they chose not to.”
She said Target is “more worried about standing with the Trump administration than the communities that made them a profitable company.”
Fiddelke joined dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations in co-signing a letter in late January calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state after the fatal shooting of Pretti. However, the letter did not name the shooting victims Pretti or Good or call out the president, his immigration policies or federal agents.
Fiddelke also shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for ICE agents to leave the city or for accountability in the two shooting deaths.
Weingarten described the CEOs’ letter as “insulting” and said it “basically blamed both sides.”
She said the union, which includes many teachers, can have the greatest financial impact during the back-to-school shopping season this summer and fall. By passing the resolution now, she said, the AFT can get the word out to members and “give Target enough time to come back to its senses.”
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