Cash use rises, but 3 crore people stay on digital platforms
April 12, 2017 20:21
Even as data shows increase in cash usage again, the National Payments Corporation of India today said demonetisation helped get 5 crore new customers on digital mediums and over 3 crore have stayed on.
"If you look at on standalone basis, the country would have added 30-35 million customers on the digital platforms, who have stayed on digital platforms," NPCI Chief Operating Officer Dilip Asbe told reporters.
He said the cash crunch after demonetisation pushed 10 crore people to use digital or cashless transactions. Even though many of them went back to using cash after that, over 30 million continue to use digital ways for payments.
Asbe said in normal course it would have taken at least two years for getting the 30-35 million more people to use digital transactions.
There was a huge spike in digital transactions after the Government banned 86 per cent of the currency by value on November 8 last year. However, as the remonetisation progressed, there has been a month-on-month decline in digital transactions for two consecutive months till February.
Official data shows there was a 9.1 per cent fall in digital transactions in January 2017 over December 2016, while February witnessed a decline of 21.3 per cent over the preceding month.
Asbe said digital payments is a "habit" and more efforts will be required on customer education, literacy and awareness to push cashless transactions.
Simultaneously, work is going on to increase the number of touchpoints where the digital alternatives can work, he said, adding in the next two years these will jump 10 times to over 15 million.
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