Budget 2019: Cheque bounce to cashless transactions, 5 announcements FM may make to boost Digital India campaign

In a bid to push Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India campaigns, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to make some announcements that would discourage cash transaction and motivate people to adopt digital transactions  instead. Strong rules and punishment for cheque bounce, ease in E-KYC norms and some announcements related to the legality of the e-signature are some of the measures that the India Inc is expecting from her on July 5th when she tables the maiden union budget of the Modi 2.0 Government.

Speaking on the steps that Modi 2.0 Government may announce to push Ditial India campaign Mandeep Chaudhary, Co-Founder and Managing Director of KNAB Finance said, "Last year, in the budget speech, the Finance Minister acknowledged the huge credit deficit of about $2 trillion for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), Finance minister Arun Jaitley emphasised the importance of fintech start-ups for easier access to working capital requirements."

See Zee Business video below:

On how do we scale up from there, Mandeep Chaudhary of KNAB Finance said that fintech lending companies are much agile, forward-looking than others, it is more built in the DNA of the setup. The decision makers are much closer to the ground and see the pain daily on solutions they provide to their customers. 

On measures that Nirmala Sitharaman may announce on July 5 Mandeep Chaudhary listed out the following five points:

1] Digital India has changed the way we handle and manage KYC. We no longer require physical PAN Card or even GST Certificate to acknowledge the genuineness of the document. The digital tools help to ascertain the correctness of the details;

2] Legality of e-sign. Legal procedures have to accept the e-sign on agreements, so that end to end digital experience can be provided to the customer;

3] Tax incentives for technology companies, in particular, those supporting MSMEs;

4] “Sandbox Legislation”, which can allow Fintech to launch the product on a limited scale to test the services, business models and delivery mechanisms; and

5] More stringent rules on cheque bounce. For bigger companies, the government has come up with IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code), but there is a challenge to collect outstanding dues from smaller MSMEs."

Let's how much of these steps make a cut into the budget 2019.