Worldline India Digital Payments Annual Report 2021

The RBI’s Vision document for 2019-2021 of Payment and Settlement Systems in India was drafted with a core theme of empowering an exceptional e-payment experience to consumers. Its vision statement was aimed at empowering every Indian with access to a bouquet of e-payment options that are safe, secure, convenient, quick and affordable. Over the past three years, the RBI has made significant efforts to enhance digital payment adoption across the country, especially while addressing the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The payment ecosystem witnessed the RBI introducing several innovative initiatives like benchmarking our payments system, offering regulatory sandbox, facilitating small value digital payments in offline mode, enhancing contactless cards (NFC) transaction limit to ₹5000, issuing framework for processing of e-mandates for recurring online transactions, issuing guidelines on regulation on Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways (PA / PG), tokenization of card transactions, permitting card on file Tokenization Services, operationalization of Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) among others. The Government of India too is backing the idea of creating a less-cash society. In December 2021, the Union Cabinet approved a ₹1,300-crore incentive scheme to promote digital transactions using UPI and RuPay debit cards.

The FM in the FY23 Budget speech articulated that their focus is to promote the use of payment platforms that are economical and user friendly. The FM also highlighted that the financial support for the digital payment ecosystem of ₹ 1,500 crore announced in the previous Budget will continue in 2022-23. While the RBI and the Government have been continuously encouraging the digital payment sector to ensure that the benefits of digital banking reach every nook and corner of the country in a consumer-friendly manner, the industry players including banks, technology providers, processors, FinTechs among others have been leveraging technology and innovation to make this happen.

As a result, consumers are embracing digital payments like never before. While the industry has been successful in creating a habit-forming bouquet of e-payment options like UPI, Cards, PPIs and emerging payment modes like Bharat BillPay, and NETC FAST tags among others, the acceptance infrastructure is now gradually sprouting. Worldline is a partner to many banks, financial institutions and all top e-commerce giants facilitating services to over 1.5 million merchant touchpoints across 5000 towns and cities in India, South Asia / the Middle East.

Powered by about 2000 talents spread across 12+ offices in the country, it is committed to the cause of creating innovative, scalable and cost-effective acceptance solutions for the ecosystem. We are pleased to share the ‘Annual Digital Payments Report’ covering interesting insights by analysing transactions available in public databases as well as transactions processed by us in 2021 (Jan – Dec). In addition, we share our perspective on how Artificial Intelligence will shape the payments space in the coming years.