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A digital payments revolution in India

economist.com

11–20 of 179 posts

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#11
post #7

A 'revolution' to on-board users and then airdrop them free money in order for the Reserve Bank of India to deploy their own CBDC on top of UPI. [0] [1] Just like the catastrophic e-Naira and the widely adopted and dystopian digital Yuan this 'revolution' is all about CBDCs. India is being a bit more clever in moving everyone in India on to their e-rupee CBDC and using the UPI hype and free money airdrops to do that.…

Although cbdc is a goal, the main purpose of UPI is simplified digital payments. UPI grew because of its technical superiority to existing methods, even regular people could see that difference. It's not because of incentives that it is so popular and most people never recieved them

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#12
As a note, this is slightly incorrect:

> The Indian model is inspiring others. Brazil’s Pix, which facilitates bank-to-bank payments with a small fee, was launched in November 2020. It now accounts for some 30% of Brazil’s electronic payments (credit and debit cards take up around 20% each)

In fact, Pix is free, which is the main reason why the Brazilian population adopted it so widely and so quickly. Before Pix, you'd always have to pay a significant fee to make bank transfers, and they could end up taking a whole day to go through.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#13

[flagged]

Unless it’s an interpersonal transaction or a business which I frequent or close to where I stay I do not use UPI. The Transaction can remain in “In Processing” for upto 48 hours and then it can go either way. I mean someone had to be especially challenged to not consider this in a modern payment system.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#14

As a note, this is slightly incorrect: > The Indian model is inspiring others. Brazil’s Pix, which facilitates bank-to-bank payments with a small fee, was launched in November 2020. It now accounts for some 30% of Brazil’s electronic payments (credit and debit cards take up around 20% each) In fact, Pix is free, which is the main reason why the Brazilian population adopted it so widely and so quickly. Before Pix, you…

in Spain there's Bizum

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#15

[flagged]

>"where every transaction you ever partake in is authorised and recorded by a privately run commercial bank"

Isn't it the same in The West bar cash transaction?

>"If such a bank does not like an enterprise – such as Wikileaks – it can just freeze it out"

Same question again. For example in Canada they did just that during tracker's convoy.

I am not telling we are at their level (yet) but the direction ever country seems to be moving in looks like for more government / big corps spying and control.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#16
post #6

When you pay a merchant $100 with your card they get about $97. When this $100 has exchanged hands 50 times only $15 remains. The bank owns the other $85. Cash is a hassle but it cuts out the middlemen. We need a unified payment system in western countries, but it's almost impossible given how much of a chokehold big banks have over our economy. Capitalism at its finest.

I agree. From what I understood, the Dutch iDeal system (which I love) might become a European standard. It doesn’t cover large parts of the world but I think the fees are not as “insane” as PayPal or systems like this.

> From what I understood, the Dutch iDeal system (which I love) might become a European standard.

What can you tell me about iDeal's privacy aspects? Does it allow anonymous transactions (here it mght make sense to distinguish between

- non-anonymous entity sends money to anonymous entity

- anonymous entity sends money to non-anonymous entity

- anonymous entity sends money to anonymous entity;

"anonymous" is here to be understood as "anonymous to iDeal", i.e. iDeal has no practical chance of de-anonymizing this identity)?

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#19
post #6

When you pay a merchant $100 with your card they get about $97. When this $100 has exchanged hands 50 times only $15 remains. The bank owns the other $85. Cash is a hassle but it cuts out the middlemen. We need a unified payment system in western countries, but it's almost impossible given how much of a chokehold big banks have over our economy. Capitalism at its finest.

Only in America are fees that high :)

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#20
I simply love UPI! I have seen this firsthand in remote villages and it has completely changed how small merchants accept money. Recently, while I was in Goa and even out in the ocean off the coast, the ease with which I was able to make payments was out of this world.
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