NITI Aayog, DoT conduct workshop to educate mid-level govt officials on importance of digital payments

Young government officers and bankers were educated about the importance of digital payments and its legal framework in India during a workshop organised by NITI Aayog, Telecom department and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

"The aim was to promote capacity building. We have been witnessing the growth of digital payments. However along with it, we also need to see how our institutions where we train bankers and administrators can be formally educated about the importance of digital payments. They should be taught about what digital payments is, its legal framework, international ramifications etc," Ratan Watal, member secretary, PMEAC and Principal Advisor, NITI Aayog, told reporters on the sidelines of the review meeting of the two-week long workshop which was organised last month.

The ITU-designed course covered various aspects related to digital payments such as standards, interoperability, security issues, futuristic trends like distributed ledger technologies, consumer protection aspects, etc.

"The focus was to see how digital payments can be improved in India," said Watal, adding that the officers who have been trained will go back to their institutions to further train their teams on how to promote digital payments.

The capacity building exercise has drawn a lot of interest not just from the government and banking institutions but also in the private sectors.

The digital payments market in India is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2023, led by growth in mobile payments. Mobile payments are slated to rise from $10 billion in 2017-18 to $190 billion by 2023 as per a report by Credit Suisse.

The development happens at a time when the industry is demanding a separate regulator for the payments system. However, last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)  rejected a government panel's recommendation asking for a separate regulator for payment systems independent of the central bank.