Digital Payments South Asia

Overview

On 29-30 August 2019, APSCA India will organise Digital Payments South Asia at the Taj Lands End, Mumbai Hotel. The conference is one of the largest gatherings of card issuers and acquirers, mobile wallet companies, third-party payment providers, domestic and international payments schemes, e-payment services providers and payments experts focused on South Asian markets.

Digital Payments South Asia will explore how contactless card payments and mobile payments in retail and transport applications, together with real-time payments, financial inclusion strategies and new innovations in payments acceptance can accelerate the growth of digital payments in South Asian markets.

The Potential for Card Payments
Despite smartphone adoption and growth of UPI transactions, a major part of digital payments in India will continue to be driven by payment cards. The NCMC initiative in transport, innovative low-cost acceptance solutions and PPI[1] interoperability will drive payment card transactions and issuance.

The Real-Time Payments Business
India is the world’s leading success story for consumer real-time payments and the enormous opportunity to drive mobile payments for all customer segments. Digital Payments South Asia 2019 will explore the challenges for banks and PSPs to build a viable business on UPI-based real-time payments.

The Outlook for Mobile Wallets
PPI interoperability was expected to be an industry game changer by connecting wallet customers to the payments ecosystem, without opening a bank account, and boosting acceptance of wallets by merchants. Results are slow so far. What is holding back the growth of the mobile wallet business and how can it be revived?

Competing against Cash
Digital payments businesses in India are growing rapidly. The volume of card payments transactions is increasing and UPI transactions are growing exponentially and yet cash in circulation has increased from the pre-demonetisation era (RBI data). Is there a lack of trust from customers and merchants or are there still not enough smartphones? Are digital payments, or onboarding processes too inconvenient? What is holding back digital payments in India?

Merchants and Digital Payments
While there are reports[2] that merchant acceptance of digital payments is increasing, there is also research[3] suggesting that many merchants in India are actively avoiding accepting digital payments when they could easily do so. The research suggests that incenting customers and merchants to adopt digital payments (specifically UPI) could provide a more effective push toward a more digital economy. What type of incentives are required and should these be offered by government, by commercial PSPs or a collaboration of both?

1 - Pre-Paid Instruments
2 - https://razorpay.com/blog/era-of-rising-fintech-digital-payments-upi-report/
3 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9XA3P7ulPHfd3J0dU04VDNLYXJZS0FKSW5oMi01Ung4NnY4/view

Why Attend

Topics to be discussed:

Over the last 20 years APSCA has organised more consumer payments events than any other organisation in Asia. From 2001 2005 we organised the first national EMV migration forums educating issuers and acquirers on how to migrate to chip in markets across Asia Pacific. From 2006, APSCA organised conferences exploring EMV contactless payment cards and mobile NFC payments in markets across greater China and Asia Pacific. In 2010 APSCA began organising Asian payment card forums exploring contactless acceptance, open-loop contactless payments in transit, real-time payments and mobile QR code payments.

Who Should Attend

APSCA is inviting regulators, national payments networks, international payment systems, banks, fintech companies, payment services providers, merchants and leading payments solutions providers to attend Digital Payments South Asia. Invitations will be sent through national banking associations, national payments networks and industry associations.