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A digital payments revolution in India

economist.com

61–70 of 179 posts

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI has no dispute resolution (as of now). So if you pay with UPI to someone and have a dispute, good luck. You have to approach the Indian courts to get your money back, which, given the Indian justice system, is… difficult. By contrast, dispute resolution with cards is much easier. Also, I don’t recognise this 3% figure — not in all geographies. Eg Europe under PSD2 has 0.3% for credit cards, and 0.2% for debit car…

> UPI has no dispute resolution (as of now). And cash does??

If UPI competed with cash, that’d be sort of fine.

The problem is that UPI enthusiasts think it’s a perfect replacement for cards. It’s not.

Even with cash, because you need physical presence, you can inspect the goods. Under many UPI scenarios, that doesn’t happen.

So a “and cash does?” comment sounds like a clever zinger, but in reality cash and UPI have different threat models.

Equally, UPI is a useful alternative to cash and cards. The real world isn’t black and white. It’s not like UPI has zero value. But it’s not like cash and cards has zero value either.

Finally, one scenario where cash > UPI is: anytime there’s an internet shutdown. Of which India has an insane number.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India outlawed the usage of any bill larger than the equivalent of a $US 5 (500-rupee and up) in 2016, which was intended to force people into the digital payments system. This is much more coercive than the Euro-US approach. For an overview and pro/con arguments in the global government-led war on cash: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/021816/why-g... It's also an attempt to collect a percentage of al…

Please do remember that the 500 and 1000 rupee notes were promptly replaced with a new 500 and 2000 rupee note series. Moreover, it was not made illegal, rather it was no longer considered legal tender. A far cry from making it illegal. There are on the other hand limits on the size of cash only transactions without a PAN Card (tax documentation) Recently, the reserve bank has announced that it is going to withdraw t…

How is "illegal" and "no longer considered legal tender" different?

Regardless of the intentions, I don't see how banning people from using currency notes that they legally owned is not dictatorial. Why is using cash deemed guilty before even having any evidence.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#63

[flagged]

Please stop pushing these baseless conspiracies. The Indian government has no reason to track 500 million people in India, it would be more data than they would be able to handle. Also most people don't care enough about this, yet the RBI is thinking about adding anonymity to UPI. "The RBI may also test anonymity, security and privacy related to digital currency, It is possible to get a legal provision to ensure anon…

> Indian (or any) government has no reason to track 500 million people

LOL, don't tell me you are from a technical background

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#64
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.

> 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.

Credit card companies charge even more than banks.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it different from any digital payment? Many European countries and the US has been doing digital transactions for like 2 decades now. How was it not authoritarian then but suddenly when the Asian people do it, it's a way to track everything people does and not the simplest explanation which is it makes transactions easier?

And every non-citizen visitor to the US gets fingerprinted and photographed. How's that for "land of the free", eh? And while we're at it: every phone call in the US gets recorded and stored. That's what that big datacenter in Utah is for.

It's the land of the free, not the land of the unidentified! Even so, the extent to which living in the US is possible without various documents, and the lack of a unified national ID, makes the US a much milder environment in this regard than most of Europe. Yes, even healthcare: if you show some employment or other income, they will agree to ignore the absence of an SSN, for instance.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#66
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop pushing these baseless conspiracies. The Indian government has no reason to track 500 million people in India, it would be more data than they would be able to handle. Also most people don't care enough about this, yet the RBI is thinking about adding anonymity to UPI. "The RBI may also test anonymity, security and privacy related to digital currency, It is possible to get a legal provision to ensure anon…

> Indian (or any) government has no reason to track 500 million people LOL, don't tell me you are from a technical background

???

This isn't an argument.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#67
post #60

India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(payment_system) US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow

Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay By the way, according the the Wikipedia article, the launch of the US American FedNow service is imminent. I wonder whether it has any chance against the more expensive but widely adopted credit card payments.

Walmart is already preparing to adopt FedNow payments, and submitted comments during the public comment period.

https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2023/walmart-hints-at-ear...

https://www.federalreserve.gov/SECRS/2019/December/20191227/...

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do remember that the 500 and 1000 rupee notes were promptly replaced with a new 500 and 2000 rupee note series. Moreover, it was not made illegal, rather it was no longer considered legal tender. A far cry from making it illegal. There are on the other hand limits on the size of cash only transactions without a PAN Card (tax documentation) Recently, the reserve bank has announced that it is going to withdraw t…

How is "illegal" and "no longer considered legal tender" different? Regardless of the intentions, I don't see how banning people from using currency notes that they legally owned is not dictatorial. Why is using cash deemed guilty before even having any evidence.

Illegal: you get arrested for possession.

Not legal tender: you cannot pay taxes with it, and generally cannot use in monetary transactions.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI has no dispute resolution (as of now). So if you pay with UPI to someone and have a dispute, good luck. You have to approach the Indian courts to get your money back, which, given the Indian justice system, is… difficult. By contrast, dispute resolution with cards is much easier. Also, I don’t recognise this 3% figure — not in all geographies. Eg Europe under PSD2 has 0.3% for credit cards, and 0.2% for debit car…

Which means bifurcation will occur. Payments where you have high trust and confidence you won’t need a dispute will use UPI or similar instant payment rails. Transactions where you are not confident or are concerned a dispute is going to be required, you’ll pay the transaction fee to use CC rails. Credit cards will become “insured payment” rails for lower trust transactions. I’d never dispute a payment to my mortgage…

> I’d never dispute a payment to my mortgage servicer or electrical utility,

Er. “Never” is a strong word and it depends on scope. There have been numerous cases of overcharging. Sure, I might not dispute the payment itself, but the amount? Frequency? These get disputed all the time.

Many jurisdictions have good consumer protections for this, though, so overcharging will cause penalties— that does provide incentives for companies to do the right thing.

Re: A digital payments revolution in India

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India outlawed the usage of any bill larger than the equivalent of a $US 5 (500-rupee and up) in 2016, which was intended to force people into the digital payments system. This is much more coercive than the Euro-US approach. For an overview and pro/con arguments in the global government-led war on cash: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/021816/why-g... It's also an attempt to collect a percentage of al…

Please do remember that the 500 and 1000 rupee notes were promptly replaced with a new 500 and 2000 rupee note series. Moreover, it was not made illegal, rather it was no longer considered legal tender. A far cry from making it illegal. There are on the other hand limits on the size of cash only transactions without a PAN Card (tax documentation) Recently, the reserve bank has announced that it is going to withdraw t…

Indian rupees arent even a convertible currency...
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