We live today in a ‘digital planet’ surrounded by everything digital – be it communications or entertainment or even political dialogue.
Digital technology is spreading fast. In fact, more people have access to mobiles than to a toilet! That is the truth. It is said that in the future, digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and big data can well affect 50% of the world economy.
India had more than 462 million internet users in 2016 and the number is rapidly expanding. What holds India back is lack of proper infrastructure and the right policy framework that can boost digitization. While demonetization did increase the digital pace for India, it still remains predominantly a country that deals in cash.
What India needs is a strong regulatory and policy framework that promotes not just the government push for digital but also fosters public-private partnerships on digital innovations. Investments in education and learning skills that can help people thrive in a digital world and improving access to digital infrastructure ought to go hand-in-hand.
Given the fact that India is a vast and diverse country, it becomes more important that our ecosystem is right. And one of the simplest ways of doing this is to enable internet access on the mobile phone across the length and breadth of the country.
Digital payments are a great way to boost financial inclusion through safe and cost-effective methods and can bring the financially un-served population and small and medium enterprises.
Use of digital payment services is also known to bring about a change in financial behavior leading to increase in savings. Digital payments therefore have the potential to alleviate poverty in the long run.
More the number of people who adopt mobile internet technology, the faster will be the adoption rate of digitization of other services.
Pay1’s services for merchants rest on its digital platform. It uses mobile phone technology to enhance the lives of distributors and retailers. Its products like recharge, direct money transfer and the soon to be launched MpoS are all mobile phone based application processes.
