Mumbai : The Reserve Bank of India has formed a composite Digital Payments Index (DPI) to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.
RBI had announced about introduction of the index in its Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies as part of the Sixth Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement for 2019-20 dated February 06, 2020.
The RBI-DPI comprises of 5 broad parameters that enable measurement of deepening and penetration of digital payments in the country over different time periods. These parameters are – (i) Payment Enablers (weight 25%), (ii) Payment Infrastructure – Demand-side factors (10%), (iii) Payment Infrastructure – Supply-side factors (15%), (iv) Payment Performance (45%) and (v) Consumer Centricity (5%). Each of these parameters have sub-parameters which, in turn, consist of various measurable indicators.
The RBI-DPI has been constructed with March 2018 as the base period, i.e. DPI score for March 2018 is set at 100. The DPI for March 2019 and March 2020 work out to 153.47 and 207.84 respectively, indicating appreciable growth. Going forward, RBI-DPI shall be published on RBI’s website on a semi-annual basis from March 2021 onwards with a lag of 4 months.