| India is predominantly a cash-based economy where apprehensions of going digital, perennially persist. According to a report by Credit Suisse Group AG, 72% of India's consumer transactions take place in cash, double the rate as in China. Nevertheless, a paradigm shift was observed when India announced demonetization on 8th November 2016, announcing all five hundred and one thousand rupees banknotes as redundant, effective midnight. An unsolicited push gave birth to the new economy that strives for digital inclusion and sees rapid expansion year on year. As of November 2019, India had over 115.5 crore wireless telephone subscribers resulting in a teledensity of 88.90%. (Reserve Bank of India, 2020). This increase in smartphone devices has supported this growth and adoption of various digital means of payment.
Digital payments will increase employment, reduce risks related to cash like corruption, robbery, and carrying large amounts of cash, helping people to transfer the money with security and safety at high speed. (Pandey, A., & Rathore, A. S., 2018). Cash is King, but Digital is Divine. An inevitable movement towards digitalization makes understanding digital payments not only extremely interesting but a dynamic study.
The pandemic has unlocked the need of adopting digital modes more than ever with social-distancing gaining prime importance and the uncertainty of its end driving this need furthermore. The motivation behind this study stems from this ever-evolving subject going through another big change since 2016, with a desire to explore the perspective of the masses towards the new normal and their expectations regarding digital payments in the same. |
