'A shift in focus is crucial to drive the next phase of growth in digital payments'

A conducive atmosphere involving factors such as the Jan Dhan-AadharMobile (JAM) trinity and the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) infrastructure in the name of UPI, among others, has given a fillip to India's digital payments infrastructure. In a panel discussion at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2023, panelists said that education, awareness and an ability to collect payments digitally would further drive growth in India's digital payments story.

The panel discussion titled Digital Payments: Next Leg of Growth' had top industry players Sharath Bulusu, Director Product Management, Google Pay; Arif Khan, chief innovation officer, Razorpay; Jatinder Handoo, chief executive offileads leadsquared

What are the factors that have led to the growth of digital payments?
KALYAN KUMAR: A policy document, which was published by the UN before the G20 summit, mentions India has achieved around 80 per cent of financial inclusion in the last six years. It would have taken around five decades if it was not through digital public infrastructure. This speaks about enablers in India such as Jan Dhan accounts, mobiles and smartphones. This includes the availability and affordability of internet services. This created an atmosphere for the growth of payment infrastructure.

ARIF KHAN: Somewhere around 2010, India embarked on the digital journey in the form of Aadhaar. I think it is one of the simplest blocks of identity. By 2015, the numbers were close to half a billion. During this time, the thought process of building these blocks of digital public infrastructure (DPI) came into the mindset. There were few other things that helped the ecosystem. From 2010 to 2016, the Jan Dhan Yojana accelerated bank penetration from 20 per cent to 80 per cent. What would have taken us three decades got compressed to maybe half a decade.