With the ongoing cash crunch, digital money gets another lifeline

As news of no-cash flooded social media sites and news channels, the past 24 hours have seen a surge in people queuing to get the KYC done

After a lull for months, things might be again looking up for the country’s digital money entities, due to the ongoing cash shortage.

After demonetisation, the sector had a shortlived dream run, from November 2016 to mid-2017. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s data on prepaid payment instruments (a chunk of which is mobile wallets), these collectively clocked Rs 38.3 billion in transactions during January, falling to Rs 36.5 billion in February. The March numbers are not out, but might fall again - many users stopped using mobile wallets after the February 28 deadline for getting the know-your-customer (KYC) checks