Digital transactions grow over 25% in 2020; experts discuss change in consumer behavior

The COVID-19 pandemic has done what even demonetisation could not do for digital payments in India – it has brought about a big shift in payments from cash towards digital. Five years ago, the percentage of digital transactions as a share of retail payments was less than 10 percent. However, now it has grown to over 25 percent.

A study conducted by People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) and Citizen Environment which is an independent not for profit research center in partnership with the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) found that there was a visible change in behaviour in how India pays across the country. The study showed that over one third of Indian households today are using digital payments in one form or another. In fact, every one in four of the households in the bottom 40 percent of the income group is also using digital payments.

This suggests that a greater awareness and education about the use of payment applications and inter-operability features of UPI could propel the usage even more. To discuss this further, CNBC-TV18’s Ritu Singh spoke to the authors of the report Praveena Rai, chief operating officer of NPCI and Rama Bijapurkar, the co-founder of PRICE and professor at IIM Ahmedabad.