Debit Card Transactions See Significant Decline in January 2024, Says 1Lattice Report

Debit card transactions saw a significant decrease in January 2024 compared to the same month last year, according to the latest data from 1Lattice. On a year-on-year basis, the volume of debit card transactions dropped by a massive 16%, while the value decreased by approximately 7%.

However, when looking at the month-on-month data, there was only a slight decline in total debit card transaction volume, down by 3.9% in January 2024 compared to December 2023. The value of transactions also decreased by 3.5% during the same period.

In January 2024, about 0.69 billion debit card transactions were recorded, with the majority (76.2%) being ATM transactions, followed by 17.3% in Point of Sale (PoS) transactions, and 6.5% in E-commerce transactions. These numbers showed a marginal difference compared to December 2023, with approximately 0.72 billion debit card transactions recorded during that month.

In terms of transaction value, January 2024 saw a total of 3.05 billion worth of transactions, with 85.1% of these transactions occurring at ATMs, 10% at PoS, and 4.9% in E-commerce, according to 1Lattice data.

Despite the recent decrease in debit card transactions, the overall trend in card-based transactions has been positive in recent years. In the past four years, both debit and credit card transactions have grown at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of around 20% and 19% respectively. A recent report by PWC India highlighted that there are approximately 71 million active credit cards in FY22.

It is expected that card-based transactions will continue to grow steadily, with an estimated 16% year-on-year growth projected for the next four years.