The dearth of currency notes just after demonetisation forced quite a few folks to adopt cashless transactions and created the providers of digital transaction facilities common in India in 2016. Since then digital transactions in the nation have witnessed a surge in quantity of players and revolutionary techniques, aided by speedy advancement in technologies.
The advancement in digital payment technologies and its adoption post demonetisation created life a lot easier for the tech-savvy Indians throughout the countrywide lockdown imposed to include the spread of Novel Coronavirus Covid-19.
“Digital payments played a key role this year, but the year also witnessed the impact of Digital lending, as an increased number of merchants and consumers embraced BNPL (Book Now Pay Later). On Simpl, we onboarded 1500 category leading merchants in the last quarter which is indicative of the shifting consumer preference to pay later. We expect these numbers to grow significantly in the coming quarters,” mentioned Nityanand Sharma, co-founder and CEO of Simpl.
Advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies has also played a essential function in e-commerce.
“The integration of AI/ML in credit decisioning will gain deeper significance given the need and its efficiency to detect and prevent fraud as we get ready to welcome more digital transactions over cash. We also foresee good traction on the user experience side of the coin as consumers seek secure, fast, transparent, glitch-free payments experience. The simplicity of payment experience will be key in establishing digital payments’ over cash once we come out of the shadow of the lockdown,” mentioned Sharma.
“There will be continued Preference of e-commerce payments on a mobile device with more and more consumers embracing touchless payments,” he added.
Talking on the development of digital payments, Ankit Gera, co-founder of Junio, mentioned, “India is the world’s fifth-biggest online customer base and the majority are using mobile data. This is powering digital payments in India. Wallets like Paytm, Mobikwik became popular during demonetisation and this year we have seen exceptional growth in UPI. With the support of big players like Google Pay, Phonepe – UPI has surpassed wallet payments by a big margin. With WhatsApp getting the final nod to launch UPI payments, the growth of UPI is not going to slow down.”
Hike in contactless card transaction limit: Know rewards and dangers just before availing it
Gera believes that the hike in transaction limit on contactless cards will also advantage e-commerce.
“The contactless “Tap and Pay” is one thing that is gradually gaining reputation amongst cardholders. RBI has not too long ago enhanced transaction limits of “Tap and Pay” from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000. This should really now comfortably cover 99 per cent of the payments performed via a card at a retail shop. “Tap and Pay” has the possible to come to be more common than QR primarily based payments (UPI and Wallet) since it is more user friendly,” mentioned Gera.
While contactless card payments are a lot easier than producing QR primarily based payments, vendors favor the QR as it is more affordable than maintaining a swipe machine.
“You just tap your card on a swipe machine and payment goes through compared to taking out your phone, scanning QR, entering the amount to pay, and then completing payment. Swipe machines need to become more affordable for small shops. Retailers prefer “QR based Payments” since they do not have to have to spend a month-to-month rental for QR and also Paytm, Phonepe, GooglePay do not charge MDR,” mentioned Gera.