The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (Meity) kick started the celebration of Digital Payments Utsav, which will continue for 10 months.
During the 10 months of Digital Payments Utsav, the government of India will host a series of events and initiatives to showcase the country’s journey toward digital transformation.
The focus of the campaign will be to increase awareness and adoption of digital payments in the cities of Lucknow, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, as part of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) event.
Paytm’s Grand Participation in Digital Payments Utsav
Since Paytm has played a major role in the proliferation of digital payments, especially QR codes in the country, it launched a G20-themed QR code.
This special QR code was launched by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Railways and Meity.
Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL), raced ahead of all other banks in the country to remain the largest UPI beneficiary bank for 20 months in a row. Paytm Payments Bank is one of the top 10 remitter banks for UPI transactions.
Rise of Digital Payments Via UPI Over the Years
In its monthly bulletin, RBI in February noted the following: As a testament to growing digital adoption, the recently released Reserve Bank’s Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) showed a growth (y-o-y) of 24.1 per cent in September 2022. Going ahead in 2023, the user penetration rate of digital payments in India is expected to exceed that of the world.” [Link – Page 55]
Interesting Read: Bharat Bill Payment System Can Now Be Used For Subscriptions Also
Digital payment tools such as IMPS, NEFT, UPI, RTGS, NACH, etc have shown growth in terms of usage. RBI said that UPI-led digital transactions, which has gained strong traction among consumers and businesses.
UPI has become one of the largest digital payment tools in the country. It has reached the remotest corner of the country in just seven years of its inception.
In February this year, 6,213 million transactions were done using UPI, according to NPCI.
One of the reasons why UPI is seeing new heights month after month is because NPCI and the RBI together keep on adding new features and benefits to using UPI.
Interesting Read: UPI Reached A New High With 782 Crore Transactions In December
With the government celebrating Digital Payments Utsav, we have created a list of initiatives that have led to the rise of UPI.
- Onboard NRI for UPI: NRIs from 10 countries can use UPI to send and receive money from their international mobile numbers. Their international mobile number must be linked to their domestic bank account (NRE bank account), which should be active.
- UPI Lite: Last year, NPCI launched UPI Lite to process low volume transactions. UPI Lite doesn’t utilise banks’ infrastructure and can only be used to transfer or accept less than Rs 200 per transaction. Paytm Payments Bank has become the first bank to launch UPI Lite on Paytm app.
- UPI on feature phones: With the launch of UPI 123Pay in March 2022, the RBI widened the ambit of UPI’s usage to non-smartphone users. To transfer money via UPI, users will have to call an IVR number or give a missed call to a specific number on their feature phones. It has the potential to attract 400 million users from rural and remote areas.
- Linking of credit cards: This was a revolutionary addition to the UPI payment system. In June 2022, the RBI allowed the linking of credit cards with UPI to make payments. Before this, one could only connect their debit cards with UPI.
How Businesses Can Leverage Digital Payments Utsav
As the government is pushing digital payments via different campaigns, you should start seeing more people wanting to pay via digital payment tools. You should also encourage people to participate in Digital Payments Utsav by choosing digital payment tools to make payments.
With the government putting all its weight behind digital payments, merchants have a big role to play to ensure India becomes a digital-first economy.
Every offline and online merchant should ensure that they accept payments digitally. While it might sound like a simple thing to do, being able to accept digital payments involves quite a bit of preparation.
Accepting digital payments means you have to accept money via all payment options such as debit and credit cards, UPI, net banking, digital wallets, etc. You will have to partner with a secure and reliable payment gateway that can enable you to accept digital payments.
Additionally, you must have digital payment capabilities in your physical shops as well. You must have in-store payment tools such as point-of-sale devices to accept money via debit or credit cards, UPI, QR codes, etc.
Paytm provides both in-store and online payment tools that can quickly enable you to accept money digitally and be a part of Digital Payments Utsav.
