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(The Gist of PIB) Merchant Digitization Summit 2021

(THE GIST OF PIB) Merchant Digitization Summit 2021

FICCI and UN-based Better Than Cash Alliance hosted Merchant Digitization Summit 2021.
Towards Atma Nirbhar (Self Reliance) Bharat with a special focus on Himalayan Regions, North East Regions and Aspirational Districts of India.

Key highlights:

The Summit brought together leaders from the public and private sectors to accelerate responsible digitization of merchants in India’s North-Eastern and Himalayan regions and Aspirational districts.
It focused on empowering women merchants who play critical roles in their communities.
This Summit is part of the series of Learning Exchange amongst all States and Union Territories under which DEA had also co-organized the webinar titled “Unlocking the value of Fintech in promoting Digital Payments’.
There was the consensus during the event that an industry-level approach was required to address the unique and fundamental challenges including gender targeting in national, regional and state-level merchant initiatives.
The participants agreed that the National Language Translation Mission can be used to disseminate digital payments information, privacy clauses and consent in local languages for trust and empowerment.
They also identified opportunities to address the challenges of connectivity, access to smartphones, and digital literacy for merchants at the last mile.
From an average of 2-3 billion digital transactions monthly, India has set an ambitious target for 1 billion digital transactions per day.
Person to merchant (P2M) digital payment transactions will scale to 10-12 billion transactions every month to contribute to India’s digital economy.

Suggestions:

Along with the increased focus on ‘Make in India’ through Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme, responsible digitization must more strongly include rural networks such as Self Help Groups and community enablers.
This will create local digital ecosystems to help millions of merchants join the formal economy, access credit, and grow their business.