‘Took 6 years instead of 47': World Bank lauds India’s digitisation drive ahead of G20

Ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi, the World Bank has prepared a policy document which highlights how India achieved an impressive financial inclusion rate of 80 per cent within just six years, thanks to revolutionary steps taken by the government of India.

The G20 policy document specifically mentions the government’s initiatives such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhar and Mobile phones (the JAM trinity). Notably, the document says, it may have taken India a whopping 47 years to achieve this feat otherwise.

The remarkable achievement of the Indian government has been highlighted in the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) document. India also plans to showcase the document at the summit to highlight its success on the global forum.

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India’s major achievements

The document noted how transactions through UPI amounted to nearly 50 per cent of India’s nominal GDP in the last financial year. “Banks’ costs of onboarding customers in India decreased from $23 to $0.1 with the use of DPI. As of March 2022, India did total savings of $33 billion, equivalent to nearly 1.14% of GDP, due to Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT),” the document read.

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“In just six years, it (the India stack) has achieved a remarkable 80% financial inclusion rate — a feat that would have taken nearly five decades without a DPI approach. Implementation of DPIs such as Aadhaar, along with the Jan Dhan bank accounts and mobile phones, is considered to have played a critical role in moving ownership of transaction accounts from approximately one-fourth of adults in 2008 to over 80 percent now,” the report added.

India “quick and transformative”

The World Bank also observed how Indians, especially in cities, were “quick and transformative”, which was very well reflected as UPI quickly gained acceptance amongst the masses, also pushed by demonetisation by the government.

“UPI has been widely adopted, benefitting from a user-friendly interface, open banking features, and private sector participation. The UPI platform has gained significant popularity in India; more than 9.41 billion transactions valuing about Rs 14.89 trillion were transacted in May 2023 itself. For the financial year 2022-23, the total value of UPI transaction was nearly 50% of India’s nominal GDP,” the World Bank report mentioned.

In the end, the report says India has managed to build one of the world’s largest government-to-people infrastructure, which has drastically revolutionised India’s governance regime.

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