Are we making the right investment in Digital Technology

Demonetization led to the promotion of Digital Payments which worked through the incentives offered by the Government. There are discounts offered to the customers for making digital payments across various sectors. The Government also provided financial support through NABARD to various Banks for the convenient installation of PoS devices. The Government of India is walking towards the creation of a digital economy to ensure speed, transparency and accountability. The Budget 2017 has taken a slew of measures to achieve the same and to reduce cash expenses. The basic aim is to go digital and have a low cost and effective technology that is reliable, transparent and ensures complete security. 

Digital payments ensure an ease of doing business and help penetrate the underpenetrated geographies across the country. The impact of going digital can be seen in the efficiency and the effectiveness across the unorganized sectors. While laying a foundation for digital India, the use of technology as well as the investment is an effective issue. Banks are constantly striving to reach the unbanked areas in a cost effective manner. Banks have collaborated with the FINTECHs for providing the convenience as well as promising hassle free services at a low margin. These FINTECHs provide complete solutions for the use of the large amount of transactional data of the customers, mobile apps and commerce and data analytics to keep up with the new technologies and monitoring systems.

Digital India poses huge challenges of cyber security. With various Banks offering mobile services to the customers, they need to redefine and remodel the technology to ensure that the customers gain a satisfying experience. However, it can rightly be said that the investment in technology is not enough. Going digital requires an improvement of people, which includes an increase in competence and a change in the process of recruitment to retention. Banks are required to implement effective planning, monitoring, training and evaluating the expertise of the IT team and invest in them so as to match the changing technology. Digital adoption is strongly being injected across the youth in rural and semi urban areas across the Country. Various injectives have been pushed into the system to ensure a quick move towards digitalization. But the fact remains that it is not an easy task to create awareness among people to use the multiple channels digitally.
 

We need to invest in people for the awareness, in terms of cyber security as well as cashless digital transactions. An investment in people will change the way people transform into the digital mode. Such an investment requires higher focus by investors to reach each village and get the people acquainted with the use of digital wallets or mobile banking. The habits and thought process of the people should be transformed to ensure that the user experience is enriched. Imparting training to individuals and generating awareness drives across the rural areas should be taken on a mission mode. Lastly, a method for disincentive for cash transactions above a certain limit should be adopted so that the increase of digital mode remains prolific. An investment in the right technology will help India achieve the goal of a digital economy.