Cashless, Paperless Could Make India An Efficient Economy: Amitabh Kant

Thank you for that introduction. Adhil, distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman, I was very keen to be personally present on this very unique occasion of BankBazaar Paperless Finance Conclave. Unfortunately, I have got caught in a major meeting in Delhi. I am extremely happy that I am interacting with all of you. This is a very significant Conclave and my views are India use of cash as a proportion of GDP has been on a higher side, crossing 12 per cent mark around 2007-08 and averaging since then about 11-12 per cent during last 5 years. If you contrast this to cash to GDP ratio it is just about 3.9 per cent in Brazil, 5.3% in Mexico, 3.7% in South Africa and so on. Now, personal consumptions is also highly dominated by cash payment reaching up to 95 per cent of total personal consumption expenditure. Various other developing economies, especially in the BRICS region and Indonesia have been successful in achieving an optimum cash to GDP ratio of 3-8 % despite some of them having lower capacity under digital infrastructure.

You know, we as a country and economy, we are characterised by very, very large proportion of informal enterprises, but I think there are huge, huge opportunities, there are new opportunities in India’s financial sector which are extremely immense. India can become the hub of global innovations in financial technology. You know we are very strong start-up ecosystem. There is entrepreneurship spirit, talent… these are very key strengths for India. India has been the third largest start-up destination in the last two years, almost more than 900 financial technology start-ups reaching significant scale. And India is very rapidly moving away from traditional banking towards digital transactions and banking. You look at… a good example is the India Post, which is adopting mobile banking services. We have a very untapped consumer base in rural areas in India, one of the largest potential source of growth anywhere in the world. We have industries and dynamics start-ups (that) can fulfil financial inclusion agenda through creating very innovative financial technology products, you know, just targetting at the very vast untapped group. So to my mind paperless banking is one such innovation that we all need to give huge emphasis. All of us, stakeholders need to emphasise on it and there have been several government initiatives actually. There’s been India’s leap towards digitisation. If you look at it the adoption of Aadhaar – there’s almost 99% Aadhaar penetration. If you look at bank account coverage: 29 crore accounts (have been) opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna up to June 2017. The mobile subscriptions — we have crossed about a billion plus mobile subscribers. Internet subscribers… 35 per cent of the population uses internet. Our view is that in another 10 years’ time, in the next decade this will be 10X. And the POS infrastructure, the POS machine have grown by 83% in just last one year.

BankBazaar is a leading online marketplace in India that helps consumers compare and apply for Credit Cards, Personal Loans, Home Loans, Car Loans and insurance.