December 2, 2016 at 2:26 pm

With demonetisation in India and difficulty for cash many people are transiting from using cast to other modes of payments. While many are find the process and kinds of instruments difficult to understand as they are used to cash since childhood and many are not digitally comfortable, the other thing is that you need a medium at both the ends to interact and their are many different kind of instruments to choose from of different service providers like banks, digital payment companies and credit other card providers. Each one uses a different software and all have their advantages and disadvantages like cash. The problems of which have not been faced by the till date till the time they get a taste of the problems associated. All countrymen should help themselves and many others who are not financial instrument literate to understand how the system works and something like a crash course has to be gone through practically to be confident of the systems. Many of these are run by private companies with no monitering mechanism or guidelines framed to protect the citizen who is new to this system and  learning how to go about it.

To be fair I am very comfortable with the cash system and have learnt about the problems with cash and its handling for many number of years. The other instruments sparingly used are the debit cards as ATM cards and the credit cards as a last resort. From this article I will try to provide some information which may be of use in the usage of these systems. India has not yet planned and devised one standard plastic  or other financial instrument which can be used by all Indians like cash can be used. The sooner the government comes up with it and makes the citizens of the intricate detail through a dedicated portal for the same and other material like pamphlets which are printed at low cost and distributed to citizens and is guaranteed by some institution like the Reserve Bank of India  which is there in the case of cash. If this is done the process of changing to such a economy will be faster and citizens will be well aware of its advantages and limitations. Too many cooks spoil the broth the same is happening in this case with different systems to perform transactions and expecting computer literacy and tech savvy India’s to be ready overnight.

The other important thing about these new systems is that they too have their many pitfalls and are not foolproof. As people start using more problems are bound to crop up and an army of tech savvy people should be given employment and sent all over India and a very big call centre helpline whch many numbers should be ready to serve the needs of the citizens in a friendly way as this operation needs a lot of patience and should not be done like a machine and people to people contact will help build confidence along with other governments advertisements at all places where government can provide them. If the government and the concerned financial institutions are going to be complacement and not conduct this exercise on a war footing  especially the finance minister has to lead this there are going to be problems galore and dissatisfied citizens which is not healthy for the economy.

There are many frauds which can be perpetrated which have to be highlighted and information about how crooks will misuse the electronic payment systems have to provided on a mass scale to all citizens as a education series to get citizens confidence in the new system in a phased and faster manner and changes in this repeatedly should not be undertaken as is being present and a big booklet with with many rules should not be given and told the customer is responsible for his instruments anyway. This is nothing but escaping from responsibility and doing a shoddy work which does not help the purpose for which the decision has been taken and will defeat its very purpose. I am not comfortable with passwords and data on the computers as different methods are adopted by crooks like phishing, attachments, malware, cookies, e mails fraud etc.,monitering a persons financial activity only thus compromising freedom of privacy, generating data which can be hacked or shared and used for damaging the individuals financial capacity and looting the peoples plastic and other money through system hacking can be easily done.

A case to study is the inumerous  financial frauds carried out world wide by the crooks and professionals in this business and we cannot detect and catch them and till the time that fellow gets caught we are left high and dry. The are a million ways adopted by crooks and fraudsters to carry out their act are all the people and financial institutions really ready to handle this project without putting the money of contrymen at risk? Can citizens have a peaceful sleep without worrying what will happen the next day? The government is solely responsible for this move. As a citizen even I would want to country to move ahead. But it has to be seen the fast pace will not result in a crash of the system. India is India do not compare it with Japan, Belgium, Canada or France where plastic system runs smoothly with very few of minor hiccups. To err is human and the same human’s has prepared machines and software for the system. A big cyber police wing is needed to deal with the situation. And those working in the financial system also need to be trained to take on the challenge. Only time will tell what will happen best of luck India and its citizens.