A few years ago, around 2016-17, everyone was predicting an imminent disruption in the payments space. Traditional payments products by banks, they said, would be overthrown by younger, nimbler payments companies.
Leading the pack of would-be soothsayers was Nandan Nilekani, payments maven and architect of the government’s unique ID system Aadhaar. “All banking products will be disrupted,” he said ominously in 2016.
Then came Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm*. “The cost that banks put on the payments [is big]. I don’t know… it’s your money, moving from your account to this account.