In a developing nation like India, the benefits of going cashless are immense. While cashless modes had been gaining traction in the domestic landscape, the demonetization the Indian government in 2016 gave it a boost. Moreover, the rising ownership of smartphones and deeper Internet penetration has further led to the country witnessing a significant transition towards going digital and adopting cashless modes of payments.
However, while several developments have been made on the digital front, these still leave out an irrefutable percentage of the population that still exists without a smartphone and is devoid of access to Internet connection. This left a significant chunk of the population, indicating how the Indian masses are still dominated by feature-phone users. Therefore a solution is needed to ensure penetration of digital payments and other such services even at the most granular level.
Hereby enclosing platforms that ensure penetration of digital payments making India a cashless economy:
1. ToneTag: ToneTag is India’s leading sound-based proximity communications and payment service provider that has made massive headway in the global digital payments space. ToneTag’s soundwave technology is on a mission to truly democratize digital payments ecosystem with the idea of supplying an entire Nation a mechanism to use digital payments. The technology harnesses the power of sound to enable payments, facilitating the phone’s speaker/microphone to communicate with the Point of Sale. ToneTag has reached over 52 million consumers across the globe with its cutting-edge Sound Wave technology-based systems and empowered 3,10,000 merchants. Backed by Amazon, Mastercard, 3one4 capital and Amensa, ToneTag is built to bridge the last mile in financial inclusion and deliver simple cashless paymenTS.
2. Razorpay: Razorpay is the only payments solution in India which allows businesses to accept, process and disburse payments with its product suite. It gives you access to all payment modes including credit card, debit card, netbanking, UPI and popular wallets including JioMoney, Mobikwik, Airtel Money, FreeCharge, Ola Money and PayZapp.
3. Instamojo: Instamojo is India’s fastest growing on-demand payments and e-commerce platform that enables over 1,000,000 small businesses and startups to build, manage and grow their business online. Today it powers 10 per cent of the digitally active MSMEs in India and enables growth for 1 out of every 100 small businesses in the country.
4. PhonePe: PhonePe is a Fin-Tech company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in December 2015, it provides an online payment system based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which is a new process in electronic funds transfer launched by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It is licensed by the Reserve Bank of India for issuance and operation of a Semi-Closed Prepaid Payment system. It is a revolutionary way to make mobile payments in India and also provides with a digital mobile wallet for faster refunds and cashbacks from merchant partners.
5. Google Pay: Google Pay is a mobile payments service by Google, targeted at users in India. It operates atop the Unified Payments Interface, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India. It can be used where UPI payments are accepted. It works on the vast majority of India’s smartphones (with apps for both Android and iOS) with the Android app supporting English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu with more languages coming soon. Within 37 days after being launched, it was able to get 8.5 million installs, this technology does away with the need for NFC chips on the handsets.
