EPayments have become habit for people, says FM

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday that the compulsion of using digital payments after demonetisation has now become a habit and as a result high denomination currency in circulation has come down.

He said e-payments will gather pace on account of government initiatives and technology advancement.

“Obviously in the month of November, December and January, a lot of people went in for digitisation in terms of mode of payment more out of compulsion rather than finding it a more convenient method to transact, but that compulsion created a habit for many,” said Mr Jaitley after the launch of mobile app Tez — a Hindi word which means fast — for digital payments developed by Google for India.

“We reached a peak figure (after the demonetisation), then it marginally slipped and is now bound to pick up again,” he said.

The finance minister said that various government initiatives to encourage digital transactions are going to make a major advance in that direction.

“As we stand today, the high denomination currency has squeezed... The squeeze process is going to happen in the natural course of the economy. The second important test is as a consequence of this how much we are able to expand the number of assessees and the tax base, both direct and indirect," he said.

Built on the governmentbacked Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Tez allows users, free of charge, to make payments straight from their bank accounts, Google said.

The app was built for India and is available in English and seven Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu).

Tez works in partnership with four banks to facilitate the processing of payments across over 50 UPI-enabled banks.

THE IMPORTANT test is as a consequence of the digital payments how much we are able to expand the number of assessees and the tax base, the minister said.