India is slowly moving towards digitisation of currency by trying to replace coins and notes with bits and bytes. But, people of India still seem to prefer physical cash for their daily transactions that involve small payments. Nevertheless, digital payments have been encouraged for such kind of small transactions using various kinds of wallets and apps from BHIM to UPI. The problem is that these kinds of apps don’t come in handy when someone has to buy something for 2 rupees.
A tap & go system was introduced on 17th June by the National Payments Corporation of India, making smaller digital payments for bus fare, vegetable purchases etc easier. It also launched contactless cards at the recently-inaugurated Kochi Metro. Users can load these cards for as low as Rs 100 at a bank or metro station and use them for micro transactions.
Officials of NOCI stated that BHIM has been used to make payments of as low as Rs 150 only. 0.5 million of the 8 million daily transactions on Paytm are less than Rs 100. Users are transferring even Rs 10 in person-to-person transactions.
On 20th June, Yes Bank partnered with the messaging app Hike for making payments on the chat platforms possible. Similarly, WhatsApp is also exploring similar payments options.
M-pesa was introduced in Kenya, where users pay digitally for micro transactions. In the US, merchants accept debit cards for payments as less as $1 too.
Bengaluru Metro and Kochi Metro have tied up with banks for issuing prepaid cards which can not only be used for metro rides, but also for bus/ferry services, shopping or cash withdrawal. These cards can be topped up on the internet, mobile or service points.
MobiKwik has tied up with vendors like Amul, Verka, MotherDairy, Safal, BEST and Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation to make digital payments easy.
There are some challenges though. Card swipe machines that were installed before 2016, need to be replaced and upgraded for reading the new cards by investing Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,000. Small merchants who don’t have card swipe machines do not want to invest in them as they fear they wouldn’t make profits.
Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled phones is another option using which you can pay by simply waving the phone. Only a few high-end phone models ins India are NFC-enabled though. Even though there are so many options available in the market, people still prefer to carry some cash with them. Internet connectivity and faulty card swipe machines are other issues that are lowering the public's confidence.
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