The most important Recommendations of “Report of the High Level Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments”

          The committee’s report is an exhaustive one and requires detailed reading to understand it’s recommendations and the impact on Safe ePayments in India.

          In my view, the following three recommendations are the most significant which will quicken the adoption of Safe ePayments in India.

          The other recommendations revolve around these three recommendations.

Page 140 : In case of time-bound payments, there should be sufficient disincentive built into the system to prevent the use physical or paper-based payment options by citizens making last-minute payments and force the users to adopt only digital payments.

For instance, Government may consider doing away with the practice of keeping bank branches open on last few days of fiscal year closing (March 31st) even when they fall of holidays / Sundays, just to facilitate cheque / cash payments.

Page 144 : Introduce a closed loop wallet for Government transactions Recommendation 69: In order to smoothen payments, to and from the Government, a limited closed loop wallet may be introduced, where all the balances are used for interactions with the Government.

Page 145 : Recommendation 71: In order to increase transparency, and reduce costs, the committee recommends that the Government change the incentive structure for payments acceptance, by disincentivizing cash receipts in favour of digital receipts. The savings may be used to provide incentives to users paying digitally.

Disclaimer: These are only my personal views. The bottom line is Safe ePayments, Nothing more-Nothing Less.