“There's no greater gift than thinking that you had some impact on the world, for the better.”
– Gloria Steinem
Plastic's troubles
Transactions through the Unified Payments Interface have been booming—back of the envelope estimates put UPI merchant payments at 36% of debit card payments
The debit card, on the other hand, has been in a state of stagnation, with growth in the number of cards issued, or even the number of transactions, slowing
But while the future of finance may very well be all-digital, the basic debit card still has a role to play in fostering a cash-free world—if the industry gets its act together
Can large banks and card networks revamp the economics of card payments, rethink their customer segmentation and explore new use cases entirely?
The humble debit card may already be on the verge of obsolescence in India.
A couple of months ago, I had questioned the logic of the fee structure for card payments—particularly debit cards—in a piece titled “How to kill cash”. Banks across the board have little incentive to push for greater use of offline card payments, and the way to fix that, I’d argued, is to flip the free structure on its head.
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