Heena Sharma Blog

It is an oft-repeated, well known story, only the actors keep changing. For more than a year, Facebook-owned instant messaging giant WhatsApp has been looking to foray into India’s thriving digital payments industry but has moved little beyond a beta launch. Now, it is the $1-trillion US tech giant Apple that cannot find it in itself to launch a proprietary payments product using the country’s flagship Unified Payments Interface (UPI), suggest reports. Apple’s move to shelve its UPI plan comes at a time when Google has placed massive bets on the Indian payments ecosystem, especially with its Google Tez app, recently rebranded to Google Pay, which allows people to pay, collect and request payments using UPI. However, Google isn’t too sure of its own future, either. The company is known to be assessing its plans in India, considering strict data localisation norms. If the UPI values are rising at a breakneck speed each month – they have eclipsed credit card spends in th...

Modi also stated the initiative has brought in a movement towards more digital payments Current Affairs News : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday his Digital India flagship programme empowered citizens by eliminating middlemen' and promoted 4Es - Education, Employment, Entrepreneurship and Empowerment. "We launched Digital India with a very simple focus -- to ensure more people can benefit from the joys of technology, especially in rural areas," he said while interacting with beneficiaries of the flagship scheme across the country via the NaMo App. This was his fourth outreach with beneficiaries of government schemes through video conferencing. The event was streamed on social media site Facebook. He also stated the initiative has brought in a movement towards more digital payments, thereby eliminating the concept of middlemen. "Due to technology, railway tickets can be booked online, bills can be paid online... all this brings great con...