The debit card faded as UPI rose, the credit card didn’t

&lsaquo; All reads<br>Monthly card payments: credit cards vs debit cards. Source: RBI. A debit card and UPI are the same kind of thing: both move money<br>straight out of your bank balance. So when UPI spread, it did not add a new way to pay so much<br>as replace an old one. Debit-card payments are down about 74%<br>from their level when UPI took off, as the swipe gave way to the scan.<br>A credit card is a different animal. It is not really a payment tool,<br>it is a short-term loan, and UPI does not replace borrowing. So credit kept climbing while debit<br>fell, and the two crossed in March 2023 . Today Indians put about<br>2.7 times as much on credit cards as on debit.<br>74%debit-card payments down since UPI took off<br>March 2023when credit overtook debit

It is why lumping the two together as &ldquo;cards&rdquo; hides the real story. One card is<br>fading because something does its job better; the other is thriving because nothing else does<br>its job at all. Same piece of plastic, opposite fates.<br>Source: RBI payment system statistics, processed by Time Series of India.<br>Explore the dashboard →

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