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How to build a cashless society? Give people no other choice | CNBC Reports - YouTube
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You walk around Delhi
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and you find signs for
[2]
these digital payment
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platforms everywhere.
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Paytm, Samsung,
[6]
Mobikwik, just to name a few.
[12]
The number of digital transactions
[14]
in India have quadrupled
[15]
since November last year.
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Welcome news to a government
[19]
on a mission to reduce
[20]
India's reliance on cash.
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The 500 rupee and
[25]
1,000 rupee currency notes
[28]
presently in use
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will no longer be legal tender.
[34]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
[35]
pulled nearly 90% of banknotes
[38]
from circulation last year.
[40]
"Demonetization" was supposed
[42]
to crack down on corruption.
[44]
The results there have been mixed.
[46]
But one thing is clear:
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the historic shake up's been
[49]
a big boon to
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India's digital economy.
[55]
Business at digital payments company
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Paytm jumped more than 400%
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in the hours after that cash crunch.
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Its mobile-wallet app
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allowed users to shop at bakeries,
[65]
electronics stores,
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even fruit stands,
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without bills changing hands.
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In just 8 months,
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the company managed
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to sign up
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more than 220 million people
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using Paytm at 5 million shops.
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Just before demonetization,
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which was in November 2016,
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we had 700,000 merchants.
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Post demonetization,
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we upped it and then
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we started signing up to
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40 to 50,000 merchants every day.
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40 to 50,000?
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Thousand merchants every day.
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That surge in growth鈥檚 helped
[106]
Paytm go beyond
[107]
the digital payments space.
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It's expanded its
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e-commerce business.
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It鈥檚 offering loans
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and banking.
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You can even buy gold
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through Paytm's
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"digital gold service"
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which allows users
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to buy and sell
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the precious metal
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and store them digitally,
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in a government certified vault.
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The company sold
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50 kilograms of gold
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in its first month,
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making Paytm India's largest jeweler,
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Everyone in India
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saves using gold.
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If they save,
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they save using gold.
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So we want to offer
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digital gold as a product which
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is available to everyone,
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that everybody understands.
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Big name investors
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have already come calling.
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Alibaba and Softbank invested
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more than $2 billion combined.
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Making Paytm one of only
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a handful of Indian tech unicorns.
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But Paytm faces new competition
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from traditional banks
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who've developed their own
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digital payments platform.
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India also has a national ID system
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called Aadhar
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that registers people using biometrics.
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The government assigns an ID
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number attached to those biometrics
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and stores the information
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in a centralized database
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so people here
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don't have to carry
[180]
a physical ID.
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So, if you want to buy a SIM card,
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basically you take it here.
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The smartphone scans the bar code.
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Put your thumbprint on this machine,
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and it's done.
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Aadhar isn't widely used
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by shops just yet
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but the government's registered
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more than 1 billion people
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or 95% of the population so far,
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making it the world's largest
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biometric ID system.
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So can this push to go digital
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actually lead to a "Cashless India"?
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What do you think,
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can India really go cashless?
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Well cash less.
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There will be less cash, right.
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It won't be zero cash,
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almost no economy in the world is.
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In fact, a lot of the cash
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has already returned to the system
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and the Central Bank in India
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is planning to issue
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new lower denominated bills.
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That doesn鈥檛 mean
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the government is backing off
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of those cashless dreams.
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It's set out to process
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25 billion digital transactions
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this year, part of a larger goal
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to transform India into a
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trillion dollar digital economy by 2022.
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