Rise & Future of ATM for Cash Transactions in Digital India

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India has seen explosive growth across all digital channels i.e. POS, credit cards, debit cards and wallet payments. However, currency in circulation (CIC) has grown from Rs17 tn in 1HFY17 (pre demonetization) to Rs21 tn as of FY2019, thus signifying that despite increasing digitization of transaction, cash remains core for the Indian economy, large amounts of cash is used for Corruption by Politicians and Government Officials.

The ATM Demand – The quantum of ATM transactions have increased substantially over the past few years, especially in semi-urban areas. This is driven by government initiatives like PMJDY and DBT scheme etc. These demand levers

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How Credit / Debit Cards evolved to the Forefront of Payment System in India ?

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Major players entered the Indian Plastic Money – Credit / Debit Card race only in 2002-03, even though the industry began as early as 1992. The first leg of growth took place during 2003-08. The introduction of lifetime free cards, coupled with an absence of credit bureaus, had dire consequences that played out during the global financial crisis. The industry has evolved today and the learnings of the past have paved the way for the next leg of growth, which is taking place right now.

Credit Card penetration in India is still extremely low at ~4-5% and one expects a few more years of strong growth in card additions. Credit Cards have growth ~3X in the past three years to ~46 mn while debit cards have grown even more rapidly at a ~48% CAGR to ~900 mn, the latter

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Micro Payments and Small Merchants – Next Big Story

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The Payment ecosystem in India comprised of (1) RTGS for high value payments – Corporate and Government, (2) NEFT/NACH for low value payments, that mainly supported Salary and SME Business. In recent years, the micro-value payments segment has seen the introduction of a number of products like digital wallets, UPI etc. This has driven the lower end of the pyramid to the payments ecosystem, fulfilling the
government’s financial inclusion objective.

Growth of UPI – The value of transactions through UPI surpassed that of cards last year at ~Rs120 tn. This was in part driven by incentivization in the form of cashbacks etc. and hence is expected to moderate slightly from these levels as

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Axis Bank Renewed Push on Payments / Credit Cards Business

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Axis Bank has been undergoing a structural shift for sometime. It got a shot in the arm with HDFC Group veteran Amitabh Choudhary joining as the CEO of the Bank. Within retail, there has been a gradual increase in the share of high yielding retail products like credit cards and personal loans.

Payments business plays four important roles in a bank’s strategy (1) acts as the face of the franchise, (2) increases customer engagement, (3) drives profitability and (4) drives partnerships. Retail electronic payments in India are growing at a tremendous pace which

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Indian Retail Loan Accounts Hit 100 Mn – CIBIL

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A recently report by CIBIL provides keen insights into the current state of the consumer loan growth business. Given their access to all market participants (banks and NBFCs). We see this product as well as their ‘MSME pulse’ as
one of the most important reports to understand these businesses.

Key takeaways from the recently published CIBIL report on consumer lending:
(1) Retail loans grew 27% yoy led by 26% growth in live accounts touching 100 million accounts. The flattish average ticket size is attributed to a change in the loan mix towards short duration consumer loans like credit cards, personal loans and consumer durable loans. (2) Average retail

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Keya – AI Bot – Kotak Mahindra Bank – Consumer Experience Review

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Kotak Mahindra Bank the bank for today’s genNext has embraced Digital Banking solutions more than any other bank in India. I had logged on to pay my Credit Card Bill and for some reason the Web Services on their online portal was non-responsive and I got the error message “Server is Down, Please Re-Login after Sometime.”

Before I decided to try again after sometime, “Keya – the AI Bot of Kotak Mahindra Bank” caught my attention and I decided to interact with her. Here is my Conversation and completion of transaction of

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