Published Paper Details:

The Reserve Bank of India has implemented several cashless transaction or payment systems from time to time to check corruption, black money and money laundering in the country. Which includes paper based instruments like cheque, demand draft etc. and online payment settlement systems like ECS Credit, RECS, ECS Debit, EFT, NEFT, RTGS etc. After the achievements made by India in the field of information technology after 2000, internet based online transactions have been started by mobile banking, ATM or point of sale machines, UPI etc. The number of paper based transactions was 12067 lakhs in the year 2016-17 which has come down to 6999 lakhs in 2021-22. Similarly, there has also been a decline in the value of paper-based transactions. On the contrary, card payments and retail electronic clearing like ECS Debit, ECS Credit, NEFT, IMPS, NACH, UPI etc. have increased both in terms of percentage and value of total transactions. But at the same time the cash to GDP ratio in the Indian economy has also increased to 14.7%. Along with this, the number of fraud cases in online transactions is also increasing continuously and the amount involved has almost doubled from 2018-19 to 2020-21. The conclusion is that with the expansion of the economy, the number and value of cashless transactions have increased but at the same time the cash-to-GDP ratio has also increased, indicating that India is moving towards a cashless economy along with economic growth but the rate of progress is slow. In order to reduce the increasing number of frauds in online transactions along with the progress towards cashless economy, there is a need to promote strong online payment system and financial literacy among the people; so that the economic loss to the people can be reduced and online transactions can also be made popular.