Cashless Drive! Budget 2019 confirms government’s continuous focus on digital payments, says NCPI CEO Dilip Asbe

Post Budget 2019 announcement, Dilip Asbe, MD&CEO at National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) welcomed the move by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on various measures to be taken soon in regards to low digital cost payment platforms. Asbe believes, in next 5 years, with RBI and government efforts, India could emerge as innovation hub for digital payments. 

Reacting to the Budget 2019 proposals, Asbe said, "The Budget confirms the government’s continuous focus on digital payments and will aid to create a robust payment infrastructure in the country."

Sitharaman said, "I, therefore, propose that the business establishments with annual turnover more than Rs 50 crore shall offer such low cost digital modes of payment to their customers and no charges or Merchant Discount Rate shall be imposed on customers as well as merchants."

Asbe believes that, the adoption of RuPay National Common Mobility card (NCMC) shall trigger the consumer behaviour change for all the transit use cases.

In her Budget speech, Sitharaman spoke about NCMC standards by saying, "This will enable people to pay multiple kinds of transport charges, including metro services and toll tax, across the country. This inter-operable transport card runs on RuPay card and would allow the holders to pay for their bus travel, toll taxes, parking charges, retail shopping and even withdraw money."

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In March 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s first indigenously developed payment ecosystem for transport called as NCMC. 

Also, it was proposed that, business establishments with annual turnover more than Rs 50 crore shall offer such low cost digital modes of payment to their customers and no charges or Merchant Discount Rate shall be imposed on customers as well as merchants. 

Overall, Asbe said, "The budget facilitates the transformation of Indian economy from Cash driven to less-cash. We believe, with all the efforts from the government and RBI, India could emerge as world leader and innovation hub for digital payments in next 5 years.”