India Is A Country In A Hurry

The digitisation story in India is strong and boasts many important chapters with examples such as Aadhaar and Unified Payments Interface (UPI). For Praveena Rai, the chief operating officer of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), digitisation is only about creating the foundation and fundamentals. “How it makes a difference is where the game begins changing, and this is where democratisation comes in,” she says.

Rai explains that digitisation is the change on the supply side, which is the starting point. Democratisation is on the demand side. It can open a layer of innovations that can then be deployed to different customer segments. “But to achieve this, standardisation of the services is very important. It forms the pace of all other innovations,” Rai adds.

Technology at Work
Two important elements to make technology relevant in a country like India are scale and availability. “But it has to be preceded by trust,” cautions Rai. She says, “Digitised services have to be available when they are needed and they must have the consumer trust. It has to be something that can address a billion people. We are in an age where people can experiment with tech, using web services and microservices. India is a country in a hurry. We want everything now and the tech today can support this demand for agility.”

As technology progresses, the likes of artificial intelligence and algorithms take centre stage. Rai believes this is also the time when India can contribute and give back to the world.

Headroom for Growth
Rai explains that at the framework level, the evolution is evident but when it is seen a layer deeper, there are nodes of evolution. “We are seeing use cases for blockchain, for example. But we are yet not there, where evolution is happening in a networked environment that is not controlled at the centre. We have to come to a place where people are at the centre and driving the change,” she explains.

She also advises that for business drivers to kick in, backend and automation need to catch up. “The drivers have to be about differentiation and creating economic value while still keeping the customer at the core. This will create and build the market,” Rai advises.

Control to Customer
She cites the example of the credit card market in India to explain how some of these segments are among the most underpenetrated globally. As the market evolves and differentiates, these will be some areas that will push growth.

For continued and balanced growth, ultimately the control will have to be in the hands of the customer. They have to be aware of the changes around them and how their data is being used. The digital infrastructure for growth is in place but for it to soar, the push will have to come from the people.