India wants to make credit and debit cards obsolete for payments
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Ever since India invalidated much of its cash, it has been encouraging its citizens to switch to mobile wallets and other epayment solutions. Today, it took another step in pushing its citizens to embark on the cashless payment solutions — but early boomers aren’t going to like it.
The Indian government has launched BharatQR Code to enable people to pay for things they purchase without swiping their plastic cards. Instead, merchants can ask shoppers to scan a QR code and make payments directly from their bank account.
One of the biggest problem merchants and citizens faced in the aftermath of demonetization last November was the absence of non-cash payment systems.
The penetration of payment terminals machine remain low in India, with many merchants even complaining about the cost of the device and the high transaction fee. According to the government’s own estimations, there are about 57.7 million merchants but only 1.5 million digital payment acceptance locations.
With BharatQR Code, the government hopes to do away with card swipe terminals as merchants will be able to generate their own QR code that will be interoperable with all banks.
Source: Mashable (link opens in a new window)
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