Digital paments for rural india-challenges and opportunities

Rural India has crucial role to play in India's economy with the emerging changes of digital payments from physical cards and wallets to newer forms of payments such as unified payment interface (UPI), Bharat QR, Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, among others. The Indian economy has been dominated by cash. But the increased Smartphone adoption and favorable regulatory policies have created the baseline infrastructure required for a leapfrog growth in digital payments. Pay TM, one of the leading mobile wallets in the country, claims to have acquired more than 5 million merchants using QR code. Digital giants like Google and Face book offer seamless payment services leveraging UPI through Google Pay and WhatsApp Pay respectively. E-commerce companies like Flipkart also offer payments solutions through PhonePe. We expect digital payments to evolve rapidly over the next few years, and non-cash spend to overtake cash spend by 2020. Leveraging technology platforms for effective program delivery poses unique challenges. Using technology requires learning new ways to make demands and withdraw benefits, and new norms and modes of local behavior. In this manuscript, its cover information regarding challenges and opportunities of digital payments faced by rural India.