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"Are you sure you want to do this" Richa asked.
I must confess I was not, but decided to go for it and thus started this journey from Mumbai to Singapore and back without single penny cash. Yes, that’s right Just a credit, debit and travel prepaid card.
Transit (Home to Airport): Ordered OLA and paid using the OLA money wallet, funding same using the credit card. On multiple usages till date, I have seen no resistance from cab driver in getting payment in his OLA wallet, clearly reflecting the seamless settlement cycle. Stating Uber-OLA has revolutionalised personal transit, is frankly now an understatement. They are going deeper everyday by creating options like
As they continue this path, a clear possibility that in next 2-year period (Atleast in Top 10 cities of India) we will be able to have a cash less journey via all modes of personal transport.
Arrival in Singapore (Airport to Hotel): Almost all taxi operators accept card based payments (NETS Based e-payments and Cards, however 10 % administrative charge on credit and charge card is a bit of dampener on way to cashless). This meant it was again seamless, the telecom connectivity is great across the island nation so didn’t have much issue (except once at Marina Bay Sands) in paying for it, by using card. This reflected a clear contrast to India wherein the consumer has clearly moved one form factor ahead by going mobile and personally I found payment by prefunded mobile OLA wallet a better option. Dash Pay (promoted by Singtel and Standard Chartered) (mobile wallet) is an option available in some cabs and works in same fashion as person to merchant payment in wallet environment.
Search for Desi food and Mass Transit: Being desi to core I searched for nearby Indian restaurant and decided to visit Murugan Idly in Little India. Walked from Orchard road to Dhoby Ghaut only to realize that I cannot buy a Ez-link MTR (Railway) contactless card using International debit/credit/travel cards. I need to pay either in cash or via NETS or via domestically issued cards with separate NETS wallet. As the resolve to continue cash-less was strong, decided to go back and took a cab to little India. Later I realized that I can buy a Ezlink contactless card from 7-Eleven stores and other points via specific card schemes. Resulting in seamless payment experience across cabs, restaurants, Metro and Bus.
In India I would love to see such contact less cards with wide acceptance across all transit platforms (Metro, Local, Monorail, Bus, Taxi, Auto). The solution however will require significant investment in creating NFC (No current solution that requires queue busting is as good as NFC) infrastructure. Transit solution discussion by regulator is a step in right direction. Creating a sub wallet with-in your existing prepaid/debit card account is a better way to do rather than issuing separate cards. A sub wallet (Essentially funds that can be used only at specific MCC) reduces the risk of primary account getting compromised.
Struggle at Restaurant: On arrival at Little India I realized that not all restaurants accept card and smaller ones normally accept cash or NETS only and some restaurants accept cards only above $ S 10… Therefore, had to change my preference from Murugan Idly to Sarvana Bhawan (Too much of a compromise for a foodie :-) … however anything to remain cashless).
Complete opposite of this was coffee at Starbucks wherein they had almost 6 different type of terminals for all type of payment options.
So while first option was restrictive the second demanded significant hardware investment that no small business can do.
In India we need a solution that does away with the need of having expensive hardware and provides for a way to keep BAU cost low. Open loop QR code based solution for smart phones and MID number based solution for feature phone (USSD or STK driven) can help in rapidly expanding the merchant ecosystem. The recent initiatives (Details to be announced) by the central govt. like
Are all steps in right direction.
What I would further like to see is
This in totality will help in creating an ecosystem of cashless acceptance.
Return to hotel: On way back I realized that not all taxi operators accept card and though number of Taxi aggregator apps exist the concept of mobile wallet payment is almost non-existent. So after trying 2-3 taxi’s decided to walk a distance of approx. 2.5 km back to hotel (I love walking and have once walked 18 km from my home in Mumbai to International airport), walking is the best way to feel the vibrancy and pulse of a city. Faced similar challenge on way back from NUS business school to Orchard road.
I had to walk extra mile (atleast 2 times I thought have I taken right decision by not carrying cash…) to continue with this experiment but as a consumer I shouldn’t be doing that.
What I felt as a consumer
I felt strong sense of helplessness as the medium I had opted for was not ubiquitous. So had to ask beforehand every time I boarded a cab, entered a restaurant regarding card acceptance. It was therefore not a convenient option to take. Also many cab drivers shared that customer don’t use cards on cabs as thesurcharge is high.
Though from a Singapore Citizen perspective I can say for sure that S/he has all the ecosystem elements in place for a cashless society and Kudos to the regulator and Industry participants who have made it possible.
Met with a few interesting Fintech Players who intend to develop various use cases like
Singapore based Fintech’s are uniquely placed due to Singapore being Regional HUB and large investor community. However, as the number of consumer’s is limited and it’s a near perfect environment scaling a B2C solution to other Asian environments is not easy and therefore focusing on B2B might be a better way forward.
Benefits of Cashless to Indian Society
For a country of our size the benefits of going cashless are shared umpteen number of times, however even at the cost of sounding repetitive below are clear advantages of heading towards less-cash and eventually to cash-less.
Takeaways
As I write this on my way back home I am ready to take plunge in next experiment ...
Whatsapp moment: Concorde Hotel Singapore provides a great device called “Handy” which you can carry during your stay to surf, use google maps, to make domestic and international calls completely free of cost. Therefore, this also became first journey wherein I have not used my home telecom network to make or receive calls. I firmly believe over the period of time everything will ride on Data and that will be the only revenue stream left with Telco (Except for those like Vodafone who have built smart financial services on top of telco bandwidth and distribution).
About Author: Curious is first word that describes me the most, the second being Persistence with it. Love to talk therefore I share my understanding of Banking via guest lectures whenever time permits. Believer in the fact that theory should be tested, so did this experiment. Got a job therefore whatever is written above is just a reflection of my mind and doesn’t reflect organizations opinion.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
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