UPI Transactions During India-Pakistan
T20 World Cup Match: India’s iconic win over Pakistan on Sunday led to an outburst of emotions and joy throughout the country, with Virat Kohli’s innings being one of his bests. The India-Pakistan cricket match held people so much that along with the heartbeats, the unified payments interface (UPI) in India also witnessed a skip.
Until the match started at 1:30 pm on October 23 in India, the ongoing festival season witnessed a high Diwali shopping rush in the morning with the Bharat Pe UPI transaction volume up as high as 15 percent at around 10:30-12:30 am as compared to with the level recorded at 9:00 am.
However, as the India-Pakistan cricket match was approaching, the UPI transactions started declining, indicating people’s craze for the match holding their shoppings. The transaction volume fell to almost the same level at 1:30 pm as it was at 9:00 am in the morning.
The transaction volume declined further during Pakistan’s batting — India had won the toss and elected to bowl. It fell up to around 6 percent as compared with the level witnessed at 9:00 am. Pakistan finished its innings with a score of 159. And, the Bharat Pe UPI transactions resumed for some time and recovered for a bit.
However, at around 3:30 pm, when India’s batting started, the Bharat Pe UPI transaction again started witnessing a decline, indicating that the people held back shopping to watch the match.
The sharpest decline in UPI transaction volume was seen in the last overs of the match when Virat Kohli was playing his sensational innings smashing an unbeaten 82 off 53 balls. The transaction volumes steeply declined from (-)6 percent at around 4:45 pm (as compared with the 9:00 am levels) to as much as around (-)20 percent at around 5:30 pm, when India claimed the victory.
Later, as soon as the match got over, the shopping spree resumed and the transaction volumes sharply recovered from around 20 percent down as compared with the 9:00 am level in the morning to about 5-6 percent up after 6:00 pm on Sunday.
“UPI transactions from 9 a.m. yesterday till evening - as the match became interesting, online shopping stopped - and sharp rebound after the match!," Max Life Chief Investment Officer Mihir Vora said in a tweet on Monday.
In the big-ticket T20 World Cup game on Sunday, Virat Kohli single-handedly powered India to an epic four-wicket win over arch-rivals Pakistan with a magnificent 53-ball 82 not out. Pakistan recovered from a wobbly start to post a fighting 159 for eight. India completed the chase in the last ball, with Kohli and Hardik Pandya (40) doing the bulk of the scoring after a horror start to their innings.
The two revived India with a 113-run stand for the fourth wicket after they were reeling at 31/4 at one stage. Sent in to bat, Pakistan were well served by Iftikhar Ahmed’s 34-ball 51 and Shan Masood’s unbeaten 52 off 42 balls after they lost their first two wickets with just 15 runs on the board in the fourth over.
For India, Arshdeep Singh was among the most successful bowlers in the much-awaited match of the tournament, finishing with figures 3/32 in four overs at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
