There is still a long way to go for India to adopt cashless transactions, said Samiran Chakraborty, chief economist for Citibank, who estimated that the average number of cashless transactions per person per year in the country stood at just 11. “In the United States this is around 400. We have a long way to go but this shows us the opportunity besides the challenge,” he said.
Speaking about demonetisation at a seminar organised by the Bangalore Chambers of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) here on Friday, Mr. Chakraborty said it would take some time for judging how much black money was discovered as a result of the move. “Of the estimated amount of black money in the market, some will get laundered, some more money will be declared under the IDS II Scheme and yet more will get thrown away. We will not be able to judge fiscal benefit for the next few months at the very least,” he said.
However, industry experts said the coming days would see more measures being adopted by the Union government to incentivise people to move towards cashless transactions. This may be done through discounts or incentives or through punitive measures, said Vasanth Jeyapaul, vice-president of payment technology company Financial Software and Systems.
Mr. Jeyapaul said that in the coming years, the use of debit/credit cards would reduce as authentication methods using smart phones and Aadhaar would become more popular.
