CASHLESS TRANSACTIONS IN SMALL BUSINESSES A REALITY NOW MASTERCARD & HDFC BANK JOIN HANDS WITH CAIT

CASHLESS TRANSACTIONS IN SMALL BUSINESSES A REALITY NOW

MASTERCARD & HDFC BANK JOIN HANDS WITH CAIT

Vijyender Sharma

New Delhi----At a national workshop of traders held today at New Delhi, the trading community resolves to incentivize usage of Debit & Credit Cards and internet banking in their business transactions and personal expenses. This is a major shift in small businesses that in place of cash the retail trade in India is now adopting digital payments as payment solutions in their business. The Conference was organised by Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in association with card technology global major MasterCard & lead Bankers HDFC Bank.

It is noteworthy to mention that Union Government in its bid to promote cashless economy in India is considering to give relief in taxes for payments through cards & internet banking for which a cabinet note has already been circulated by Ministry of Finance. Meanwhile, the CAIT has also planned to promote cashless economy through its E Commerce portal E-lala, the pilot of which is being launched on 5th November, 2015 at Nagpur followed by its formal launching on 23rd November at New Delhi.

The CAIT & MasterCard have engaged in a national campaign across India to promote digital payments in association with HDFC Bank which is providing all digital payment solutions not only Debit & Credit Cards but even mobile wallet, point of sale machines, mobile applications & other digital payment solutions. The campaign is a community empowerment program helping small businesses to get most value from digital payment technology. The underlying idea for such a campaign is to educate traders that Cash is costly and payment cards and other digital modes offer more values.

CAIT National President Mr. B.C.Bhartia & Secretary General Mr. Praveen Khandelwal at the Conference said that retail payments environment in India is largely dominated by cash. Merely 4% of all transactions are conducted digitally and rest all transactions in cash and cheques . It is wrong conceived notion that Cash is free. Th e huge cost of paper & printing of currency amounts to nearly Rs. 20 thousand crores per annum . Beside millions of hours spending on obtaining cash payments and subsequent risk & security also involve in it. Th e digital payments landscape is limited but still emerging. Only 600 thousand accept digital payments currently. Th e Government needs to bring a support policy to equip the sector with technology.

Out of over 500 million debit cards about 95% are used at ATMs for withdrawing cash rather than at the point of sale. Considering just currency, the ratio of currency to GDP in India (12.2%) is higher than countries such as Russia (11.9%), Brazil (4.1%) and Mexico (5.7. As per report titled " The Cost of Cash in India", electronic transactions increased from 1.2 billion in 2011-12 to 1.7 billion in 2012-13, a growth of 36% and the total value of electronic transactions increased from Rs.967.52 trillion to Rs.1212.37 trillion over the same period, a growth of 25.31%.

Mr. Porush Singh, Divisonal President & Country Head of MasterCard said that Small and medium businesses play a pivotal role in the growth of the Indian economy and we want to empower them with knowledge of advanced payments technologies. This initiative is in line with government's Digital India initiative. We seek to help them embrace digital technologies in their businesses and contribute significantly in the growth of economy. MasterCard has partnered with Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) to conceptualize and drive the 'Master Your Card' training program to promote digitization of payments among Indian traders by organizing a series of trainings and educational sessions across cities, to assist traders with the utilization of digital payments in the most secure and effective manner in order to benefit their business.

Mrs. Smita Bhagat, Senior Vice President of HDFC Bank said that payment constitute an important role in business transactions. Providing hassle free payments to sellers within time limit is the essence of success of any venture. HDFC is already working with various e commerce portals and providing them payment solutions. Having engaged with CAIT is yet another opportunity for HDFC to demonstrate its acumen in banking to large chunk of small businesses.HDFC has all sorts of solutions for sellers to make payments through offline & online. Not only offline banking, Debit & Credit Card & internet banking but mobile application payment solutions will of utmost importance in business in future and HDFC will render all services.