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Cashbacks for all: Government splurges on BHIM, digital transactions

Till now, the government of India has spent close to Rs 500 crore in cashbacks for payment app BHIM. It wants to spend more. But Rs 500 crore is a lot of money. Taxpayer money. Is it being spent well?

01/06/18

Shashidhar KJ

The government’s spending close to Rs 2500 crore to promote digital payments through cashbacks, including the UPI

BHIM had an outlay of Rs 495 crore for cashbacks. But it accounts for only 6.6% of all UPI transactions

The thing to watch out for is if these cashbacks cause enough behaviour change to displace cash transactions

Onboarding new merchants on a new payment system has its own challenges

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Fancy yourself. What would you do with Rs 495 crore ($73.5 million)? It could get you about 100 Lamborghini Aventadors. It could get you around three Boeing 747s. You could potentially buy almost half a percent in Flipkart, which is valued at over $20 billion. But if you are the Government of India, you’d do…

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