A recent study, “How Urban India Pays,” conducted by Kearney India and Amazon Pay India, highlights a significant trend: the increasing preference for digital payments across India. This shift, embraced by consumers and merchants alike, is largely driven by the quest for convenience and innovation.

Merchant Adoption and Consumer Preferences

The study uncovers that a vast majority of Indians now prefer digital payments, with 90% favoring this mode for online transactions and 50% for offline dealings. Digital solutions like UPI, digital wallets, and cards are increasingly preferred, making up 69% of merchant transactions. Notably, even small vendors report that nearly half of their transactions are digital.

Demographic Insights and Emerging Trends

Digital payment methods are popular across various demographics, achieving gender parity with both men and women using these methods for about 72% of their transactions. Millennials and Generation X are at the forefront of this digital adoption, showing higher utilization rates compared to Baby Boomers, who still maintain a significant use of cards and digital wallets.

Geographic Penetration and Future Prospects

The report also indicates a robust penetration of digital payments in smaller towns, where 65% of transactions are digital, compared to 75% in larger cities. The emergence of new payment modes, like “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL), highlights the evolving landscape, with an 87% awareness rate among those surveyed.

Industry Response and Strategic Developments

Industry leaders, including Shashwat Sharma from Kearney India and Vikas Bansal from Amazon Pay India, emphasize the transformation’s scale and its implications for future strategies. They advocate for enhanced security, inclusivity, and collaboration to support the expanding digital payment ecosystem.

The transformation is not limited by age; millennials and Gen X lead, but older generations are also integrating digital payments into their daily lives. This evolution is supported by the convenience digital payments offer, cited by over 60% of respondents as their primary motivation.

Conclusions and the Degree of Digital Payment Usage

This significant shift toward digital transactions is further quantified by the introduction of the Degree of Digital Payment Usage (DDPU), a new metric that assesses digital payment adoption across volume, variety, and openness.