‘Pandemic accelerated digitisation,’ says NPCI COO

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Saturday that the pandemic had increased the momentum of digitisation in the country.

Chief Operating Officer (COO) of NPCI Praveena Rai said that the pace of digitisation had also increased due to the regulatory framework and policies of the government and RBI. Digitisation has cut across all sections of society, Ms. Rai said at a seminar organised by XLRI.

“Digitisation has revolutionised every single aspect of life and onboarding has risen substantially. There has been gradual migration from cash to digital payments both offline and online,” she added.

She said now people, consumers and merchants are preferring to go digital, adding that there also has been a big growth in UPI driven by acceptance of QR.

According to her, there has been rise in digital engagements by giving reward programmes to customers.

Rai also said resolution issues have been successfully handled using artificial intelligence and chatbots.

She said that there has been clear drop in unified payment interface (UPI) adoption during the lockdown, adding that revival has taken place since.

Rai said that digitisation is also driving savings habit among the customers which is also leading to financial inclusion in the country.