One nation, under code: How India leads the way in the interoperability of QR code for payments
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Santosh does his grocery shopping from a mini supermarket. At the time of billing, the shopkeeper scans the barcode on each item in his basket for automatic billing and collects payment by cash or card. This is a picture of urban India’s many mom-and-pop stores. Barcode technology has made billing simpler. A couple of years ago, nobody would have imagined this kind of technical capability of scanning technology in payments applications.
QR code — or, quick response code —times faster in readability than a simple bar. Thanks to Paytm, the use of QR code as a form of mobile payment made an entry and has begun to impact. The black-and-white sign is sported by kirana stores, vegetable carts and tea stalls all over the country. In the aftermath of demonetization, Paytm made it ubiquitous in their attempt to sign up merchants for acceptance of Paytm wallet. With all the card payment networks and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) adopting scan and pay mode of payments, its usage is growing.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Magill.
Source: Economic Times (link opens in a new window)
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