Life Amidst Proliferating Apps and Digital Interventions

Asoke K Laha, President & MD, Interra Information Technologies

There is an interesting debate on the role of Apps and their likely impact on human behavior. Apps or digital platforms have redefined societal and individual lives. Some of the Apps are getting downloaded into your smartphone by intent. But a lot more are gate-crashers into your system.  Even a hardened critique of a cashless society has to admit that they have become a part and parcel of the new wave of digital transformation. India boasts a track record of over 70% digital transactions, leaving only less than 30% to the cash economy. India is the market leader as per the available statistics, closely followed by countries like China, South Korea, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States. 

In our debate, we have to take the countries, that are refusing to play the game of a cashless economy. They are led by France, where still more than 70% of the transactions are cash-denominated. It is followed by Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Morocco etc. Amidst these developments, there are reports that some of the countries, which have a sizeable cashless economy, now want to go back to the earlier dispensation. Is it because people believe that automated systems and devices are prone to failures or manipulations by unscrupulous people despite strong security systems? 

A cashless society has several advantages. Transactions are quick. It can be done at any point in time in the confines of your office or residence or thousands of miles away from your place of domicile. It saves time, and is  hassle-free. Some banks promoting cashless transactions impose a fee for every visit of a customer. 

India, which leads the pack in UPI, has taken the cashless transactions to the extreme. One can come across a barber, an autorickshaw driver, or a petty shopkeeper using digital money, not necessarily in metros but also in mofussil towns and villages.

Are they sustainable? Frankly speaking, that is not my subject of treatment. But one thing is clear. The so-called fintech is not a static concept; it will keep on changing so also the format of digital money being used.

Hardly there is anyone in India with a mobile smartphone, who does not get an unsolicited call or message from a distant place to invest in Bitcoins and its various permutation combinations. That is also a rarefied form or a clone of digital money. In  social media, Bitcoin companies campaign even using the names of very important people including top businessmen, IT people, and other respected people of the society in a surrogate manner cajoling people to invest in Bitcoins.

Surprisingly I have not seen any denial from such highly respected people using or misusing their names. That forces me to think that such campaigns are done with their tacit understanding or they wish to remain neutral when their names are dragged into such surrogate campaigns. The least one expects from these people whose names are used to give a public denial if their names are used wrongly, since  number of people, who desire to become rich overnight is increasing day by day as well as the number of people who get trapped by such promises.      

In India digital operations are there not only in money transactions. Even for booking a bus or railway ticket, one has to access digital Apps, not to speak of air travel. Once upon a time, all those operations were nightmares to many. I know of people, who used to spend nights together in queues for booking long-distance railway tickets. Airline ticket booking was no better. One had to wait for hours together for booking. That time, travel agents were doing a brisk business. Online booking is the order of the day.

I think India has developed a unique culture for online payment and transactions. Most of the utilities have become online, whether you pay for utilities, remit tax, or order food from local restaurants or a traditional Dhaba.  Interestingly, the Western Railway started a campaign outside 10 railway stations recently called UTSAV (Unreserved Ticketing System App Vapra). At present, mobile ticketing contributes to 15-17% of total sales which the Railways intend to take to 45-50% in the next 6-8 months.

In the fintech sector, the government is also taking various steps to promote digital transactions including digital transfer of pay-outs and subsidies. At this pace, India is supposed to march ahead with its digital coverage and go further up in the pecking order.

Any debate on the future course of digital build-up is incomplete without looking at the other side. I find that  skeptics of online culture is increasing. Their main complaint is the proliferation of Apps. One person who wants to be away from the interventions of digital messages,  gets irritated when his phone is inundated by unsolicited messages.

Some people are suspicious of Apps because they can be used for siphoning data, including personal data, which are intrusions into privacy. There are instances when Apps are surreptitiously used for transferring money from the accounts.  

As Apps are set to become more techie-smart with the use of Artificial Intelligence, there is an increasing demand that there should be a judicious trade-off between convenience and privacy. That should be the hallmark of a sound digital policy not alone for India, but for the world at large.