India’s real time online digital transactions have surpassed US, China and Europe put together, riding on a public digital infrastructure based on an open network which allows universal access and removes entry barriers.
“India has a paperless, presence-less, and cashless solution for everything,” said Anurag Jain, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on Tuesday during an interactive session on inclusion, technology and best practices at the CII Partnership Summit 2023.
Stakeholders in India’s phenomenal growth of India’s digital transactions credit this to banks adopting technology as an integral part of financial inclusion, financial literacy camps and enabling the use of smartphones at large, as held out by J Venkatramu, MD & CEO of India Post Payments Bank.
Going forward, Venkatramu and Royston Braganza, CEO of Grameen Capital believe that capacity building efforts for end-users will provide greater impetus for embracing technology, which in turn will push India’s financial inclusion goals if lending for social enterprises and monetizing impact were also enabled.
These measures would need to be supported by robust cyber resilience to ensure data principles are centred around benefiting the user and by a set of security mechanisms to maintain trust, according to Ravi Aurora, Executive Director of Global Policy Affairs at Mastercard.
India’s digitally inclusive revolution is taking shape amidst a growing call for the adoption of inclusive, resilient and sustainable growth by the G20 under India’s presidency. With 1/3rd of the world presently under recession and 75 countries facing a global debt crisis, Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa of India points out the need for G-20 nations to drive growth through better literacy, better health outcomes and better nutrition for everyone which would be possible through greater productivity of the private sector, facilitated by Government reforms.
Michele Crisostomo, Chairman of Enel Group, Italy, has highlighted the need for India to consider incentivizing multilateral development banks to introduce more concrete actions for de-risking private capital. This can give financial support to investments into transmission and distribution grids for the development of renewables, according to Crisostomo.
Among other suggestions for G20 nations is digitisation of small and micro businesses and improving competitiveness by improving the benchmarks to compare, make strong policies based on best practices in the institutions, address the limitations and identify the strengths, as highlighted by Fernando Landa, President of the Chamber of Exporters of Argentina and Patsian Low, Head of Inclusive Impact and Sustainability for Asia Pacific, Visa, Singapore.
As part of a comprehensive inclusive growth campaign, India is now utilizing its exclusively unexplored natural resources through various agri-tech and allied start-ups to fuel its economic growth, according to Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science & Technology.
With more than 90,000 start-ups and more than 100 unicorns spread across numerous sectors and India’s leap to the 40th position from the 81st rank in the global innovation index in 7 years, there is need for effective linkage to lucrative sources of livelihood to fuel more leaps and allow a sustainable start-up ecosystem to take shape.