Mobile phone has a major social and economic contribution to Digital India. Today, we have more mobile subscribers than television sets in the country. It’s impact in enabling livelihood and earnings of a common Indian citizen is more than the collective impact of all government, NGOs and CSR activities put together.
India can opt for the mobile route to effectively take digital to every nook and corner of India by merely providing the infrastructure for wireless broadband.
One can piggyback on the existing wireless broadband infrastructure to connect and enable every citizen to create an unparalleled opportunity for every citizen in the country.
Digital payment contribution to Digital India
Today, everyone from the chaiwala and kirana stores to a tender coconut seller is accepting digital payment. This will help us in pushing India towards a cashless society. Though, it won't happen overnight, but it is already getting a big thrust from the government.
Digital payment can bring down corruption, improve traceability of funds, reduce frauds/theft and also get rid of fake currency in the system. This revolution is creating lot of opportunities for financial services providers which offer various financial services like micro lending, micro insurance, etc.
Obstacles which needs to be removed for meeting the objectives of Digital India
Improved infrastructure in terms of bandwidth quality and quantity, digital literacy, financial literacy, availability of payments software in vernacular and simple interface and security.
Countries which have done extremely well on mobile phone/digital payment platform
Some African economies were forced to adapt due to lack of a proper financial system. However, India shall provide the adoption in a regulated and enabling environment to take maximum advantage of the same.
Role of security for meeting the objectives of Digital India
Security is a big threat hindering the adoption of digital payments eco-system in India. We definitely need strong security measures to build and retain trust of the adopters.
The challenges will be the following: Securing the transaction servers and systems; incidents, like the recent ATM breach causes more anxiety and resistance among the conservatives in joining the digital money eco-system; individual security, which is not limited to hacking of phones, mobile operating systems or an entire network but is also present in form of phishing attacks and innovative fraud mechanism, which will evolve with the eco-system; and a tall order to ask for, but can the cyber fraud/cyber theft risk be underwritten, and then re-insured by the government?
Pravin Prashant
pravin@varindia.com
