Merchant Digitization Summit 2021

Economic Affairs Digital Economy

03-Mar-21

Context: The Government of India, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and UN-based Better Than Cash Alliance hosted Merchant Digitization Summit 2021: Towards AatmaNirbhar (Self Reliance) Bharat with special focus on Himalayan Regions, North East Regions and Aspirational Districts of India.

Background

From an average of 2-3 billion digital transactions monthly, India has set an ambitious target for 1 billion digital transactions per day.
Person to merchant (P2M) digital payment transactions will scale to 10-12 billion transactions every month to contribute to India’s digital economy.
This is an enormous opportunity for digitized merchants. However, most digital payments solutions are designed for smartphones whose penetration amongst merchants in these focus regions is very low.

Key Points

The Summit brought together leaders from the public and private sectors for the Responsible Merchant Digitization Summit to accelerate responsible digitization of merchants in India’s North-Eastern and Himalayan regions, and Aspirational Districts.
This Summit is part of the series of Learning Exchange amongst all States and Union Territories under which the Dept. of Economic Affairs had also co-organized the webinar titled “Unlocking the value of Fintech in promoting Digital Payments’ in December 2020.

About Better Than Cash Alliance

Based at the United Nations (UN), it is a partnership of governments, companies, and international organisations that accelerates the transition from cash to responsible digital payments to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Headquarters: New York, US.

It works with members on their journey to digitise payments by

Providing advisory services based on their priorities.
Sharing action-oriented research and fostering peer learning on responsible practices.
Conducting advocacy at national, regional and global levels.

It has 75 members which are committed to digitising payments in order to

Boost efficiency & transparency.
Women’s economic participation & financial inclusion.
Help build economies that are digital & inclusive.

Members do not want to abolish physical cash, as it is legal tender, but rather want to provide responsible digital payment options that are “better than cash”.