Redseer Strategy Consultants, in collaboration with Nandan Nilekani, has launched a report titled “The Impact of DPIs on the Indian Internet Economy”. From what it’s understood, the report states the inception of India’s digital public infrastructure since its Aadhar days, details its impact on sectors of the economy, and outlines the way forward for the technology.
According to an official release, India’s current DPI landscape has provided 97% of the population with a digital ID, facilitated Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to 900 million beneficiaries till date, and has given 40% of 1.2 billion population access to banking facilities. It’s believed that the landscape is currently expanding beyond the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhar, Mobile), with properties such as Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), DigiLocker 2.0, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Account Aggregator (AA), Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (Diksha), among others. Reportedly, DPIs have not just impacted governance but also the private sector, especially startups, by adding over $100 billion in value across multiple sectors of the Indian Internet economy.
Based on the report’s data, UPI democratisation of digital payments has led to digitisation of small businesses and proliferation of online payment among consumers. Seemingly, Aadhaar and UPI have spurred the launch of DPIs at different stages of development, such as Digilocker, Fastag, ONDC, AA and Diksha, among others. DPIs such as eKYC and UPI are considered critical to the growth of Indian startups across sectors by enabling customer onboarding, verification, and payments. The report further mentioned that the availability of zero Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) have boosted the popularity of UPI in the ecommerce space. Reportedly, mobility accounts for 65% of the ecommerce payments with foodtech following at 50%, and etailing at 35%. Platforms such as ONDC are also considered to be seeing popularity in the MSME space owing to their open architecture and affordability. Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) itself seems to have potential to generate a gross merchandise value (GMV) ranging from $250-300 billion by 2030.
Additionally, the DPI landscape is believed to have also boosted gaming monetisation by 20-25%, bringing in $27 billion in transaction value to the online gaming industry. Sources suggest that the launch of UPI Autopay in 2021 has also revolutionised payment collection for subscription-based platforms such as OTT, insurance, financial services, telecom and media.
