After demonetization, digital payments and electronic transactions have got the much-needed government push. The banking industry has been working on it for the past 2-3 years. The National Payments Corporation of India has worked towards using technology to enable online transactions. Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and co-founder of Infosys, spoke to Mint on what to expected in the next 12 months in the payments and electronic transactions, data connectivity and cyber security landscapes in the country.
The government and the overall payments industry have been looking at digital payments. What do you expect in the next 12 months?
This year, we should be closing at 8-9 billion digital transactions. The goal for next year, as the finance minister said in his Budget speech, is 25 billion transactions. If you have to go from 9 billion to 25 billion transactions, you require many things. Obviously, the government should encourage the use of digital and cashless payments. Similarly, it should make cashless payments to people—which is what Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) does. DBT directly credits money into someone’s bank account.
