Published Report | NPCI-PRICE

COVID-19 has imposed significant limitations on people’s lives. The lockdown period in India, lasting few months of 2020, has altered how India pays, driven by lifestyle changes. While the top and middle segment household people were largely at home, the bottom segment faced numerous challenges in fulfilling their needs. Across the spectrum, people were finding ways to live, work, transact and discovering the uses of digital transactions.

A persistent underlying digital DNA to government programs such as Digital India, Jan Dhan Yojna, PM SVANidhi scheme for street vendors, DBT release, mandating NETC FASTag for tolling, etc. further brought problem solving to the grass roots. The government’s significant benefits outlay also needed to reach the right target segment. RBI set the enabling tone by releasing guidelines on V-KYC, contactless payments, o‑ine payments, recurring payments on cards and UPI, standardization of QR and expanding BBPS categories. Banks, Fintechs, Payment providers and Business Correspondents played a strong role by fast tracking their digital initiatives and innovating at pace to address the gaps for consumer and merchants. UPI volumes dipped and soared as word spread through family, friends and campaigns, RuPay cards volumes picked up even in remote PIN codes that had hitherto remained silent, e-com card payments boomed and AePS, Aadhaar enabled payments, was providing the backbone for people to have access to their funds as they needed it.