Nagpur :- In furtherance of the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for adoption of Digital payments and landmark decision of G20 summit to extend digital economy to MSMEs, the Confederation of All India Traders ( CAIT) has urged Union Minister for IT Ashwini Vaishnav and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to constitute a Digital Payment Promotion Board in order to make India a less cash economy, the faster adoption of digital payments by trade & commerce as also by public at large.The CAIT has also urged that in order to ensure smoother adoption & acceptance of digital payments by small businesses which are more than 9 crore in India, the transaction charges on digital payments needs to be subsidised by the Government directly to the Banks reliving both traders & consumers from the burden of transaction charges.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal also opined that National Payment Corporation ( NPCI) should run UPI, Bheem etc and a separate Regulatory Authority should be set up for monitoring and regulate the payment Indistry. He also said that when open network is being created as a policy by the Government then payment industry should also be given open network ensuring best services to the users. Undoubtably, the Rupey has played an important role in the Country.
CAIT National President B C Bhartia said that burden of tansaction charges is one of the major deterrent in adoption and acceptance of digital payments in the Country and as such steps are needed to incentivise usage of digital payments. It will also help the efforts for bringing informal economy to formal economy.
Bhartia & Khandelwal suggested that on usage of ATMs beyond three times in a month, a nominal fee should be levied for subsequent cash withdrawal at ATMs.Further, an incentive scheme for greater usage of digital payments needs to be introduced and all sorts of debit and credit cards all other mode of digital payments including POS terminals, M-POS, mobile wallets, mobile applications, QR code, UPI & Aadhar enabled applications should be brought under the ambit of incentive schemes.
Both trade leaders said that in accordance with the recommendations of Wattal Committee an independent Payments Regulatory Board should be set up. The Non Banking Finance Companies & Micro Finance Institutions should also be brought under the landscape of digital payments to install white label POS terminals by encouraging a scheme to subsidize POS terminals directly or indirectly across both urban and rural areas.
