A Study on Digital Payments System & Consumer Perception: An Empirical Survey.

Abstract

Propelled by recent policy initiatives and technological developments, India’s digital payment system is a promising success story in the making. In recent decades, the country has seen a significant increase in the use of digital payments. A digital payment, also known as an electronic payment, is the transfer of value from one payment account to another using a digital device such as a mobile phone, POS, or computer, as well as a digital communication channel such as mobile wireless data or SWIFT.  Mode of digital payment commonly used by the citizens of the country are bank transfers, mobile money, and payment cards i.e., credit, debit, and prepaid cards. Since the launch of IMPS by NPCI in 2010 until the release of UPI in 2016, the digital payment system has evolved several times. The study is an attempt to analyze how various forms of digital payment evolved in the past and how COVID-19 impacted the digital payment systems in India. The study concludes that digital payments in India recorded a robust growth of 26.2 per cent in terms of volume during 2020-21 on top of the expansion of 44.2 per cent in the previous year. Lastly, it has been observed that after COVID-19 pandemic, people were concerned about health regulations and were afraid of cash transactions which made them switch to this mode, resulting in a rise in the usage of different modes of digital payment systems.