Digital India

Digital transactions to exceed cash in India, says PM Modi

  • The sheer volume of transactions carried out using the Unified Payments Interface in 2022 demonstrates the degree of security offered by the real-time payment system, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.
  • The launch of the facility, which links India’s UPI with Singapore’s PayNow was attended by Modi, Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das, and the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ravi Menon.

Government To Set Up Research Wing To Boost Information Dissemination

Government plans to set up a research unit to back up policy decisions with well researched data.

The government is planning to set up a research unit within its information dissemination wing – Press Information Bureau – through which it aims to strengthen daily content generated by official channels with well researched material on all significant policy decisions.

The idea behind a research unit is to ensure that all official information which PIB generates through press conferences, official handouts as well as through its social media handles, is backed with well researched and factual data, which can effectively help in dispelling any kind of lack of information or misinterpreted data, sources aware of the development said.

[Via]

Walmart-owned PhonePe gets AA license from RBI

  • Walmart-owned digital payments service provider PhonePe group on Thursday said a fully owned subsidiary of it has received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as an Account Aggregator.
  • PhonePe Account Aggregator Pvt Ltd has secured a license which will let the Bengaluru-based startup launch its AA platform.
  • AA platforms house the ability to enable free and instant exchange of financial data between the Financial Information Users and Financial Information Providers with due consent from customers.

[Via]

IIT Madras & IBM Collaborate For Programming And Data Science Course

  • IBM experts will be co-offering a Quantum Computing course on the NPTEL Platform and augment select NPTEL courses such as Data Science and AI with technical inputs to provide students with a current industry perspective.
  • Experts from IBM will also conduct technical sessions for NPTEL partner colleges through their local chapters and for the IIT M’s Online BSc Degree program.
  • In May 2021, IBM announced a collaboration with IIT Madras to provide faculty, researchers, and students with access to IBM’s quantum systems, accelerate joint research in quantum computing, and develop curricula to help prepare students.

[Via]

MeitY Startup Hub, Paytm to launch programme to support deep-tech startups

  • Digital payments and financial services firm Paytm on Thursday said it has signed an agreement with IT ministry’s startup hub to scale deep-tech startups by providing access to platform, knowledge series, experts, resources, and larger community of stakeholders.
  • The collaboration also focuses on fostering partnerships with incubators, accelerators, investors, offering a startup toolkit to solve payments, distribution and growth challenges for early stage startups.
  • Ministry of Electronics and IT senior director of Innovation and IPR AK Garg said Meity Startup Hub, through its association with Paytm, aims to build a strong deep-tech startup ecosystem by providing support for the path-breaking, solution-oriented innovators.

[Via]

Google ties up with fintech to let its users open FDs on GPay

  • Google has teamed up with Setu, a fintech specialising in providing application programming interfaces, to allow its users to book fixed deposits through Google Pay, a person with knowledge of the matter said on the condition of anonymity.
  • In the initial roll-out, FDs of Equitas Small Finance Bank will be offered for up to one year.
  • The beta version of the API offers FDs of various tenors including 7-29 days, 30-45 days, 46-90 days, 91-180 days, 181-364 days, and 365 days, with interest rates ranging from 3.5% for the shortest FD to 6.35% for the one-year FD. According to media reports, Google Pay has 150 million monthly active users in India.

[Via]

Govt to launch incentive scheme to support 75 startups in telemedicine, digital health

  • The government will soon launch a special incentive scheme to support 75 startups in areas of telemedicine, digital health and artificial intelligence, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday.
  • Singh exhorted senior officers to make efforts to reduce turnaround time while supporting startups to retain the edge over the private sector.
  • From supporting less than 50 biotechnology startups in 2012 with innovative funding of less than Rs 10 crore, BIRAC is now funding over 5,000 biotechnology startups with over 2,500 crore, it said.

[Via]

e-RUPI: Here is what you need to know about

What is this e-RUPI? The nature of the eRUPI is like a voucher. It is a one-time cashless. Also, a contactless digital payment mechanism. Users don’t need any card, payment app, or net banking to redeem the voucher. 

e-RUPI, a new digital payment mode was launched on Monday. In this thread🧵, we are going to talk about this initiative in detail. (1/n)
Objective: We know that the people who need welfare assistance don’t always receive it, which shouldn’t be the case. The government have come with different initiatives to curb the leakages in the delivery of welfare services. E-RUPI is the latest one. (2/n)
What is this e-RUPI? The nature of the eRUPI is like a voucher. It is a one-time cashless. Also, a contactless digital payment mechanism. Users don’t need any card, payment app, or net banking to redeem the voucher. (3/n)
Ways to receive E-RUPI There are 2 ways to take e-RUPI: 1. QR code 2. SMS. So, there is almost no possibility of e-RUPI getting misused. (4/n)
The beneficiary will get either a QR code or SMS to their phone. They can later use e-RUPI to avail medicines and other support facilities under different government schemes. (5/n)
Safety: The payment is considered to be safe as it is prepaid in nature. (6/n)
One can only use the voucher for the intended purpose. For instance, E-RUPI meant for medicines 💊 or getting medical services can only be used to buy medicines and get medical services. The beneficiary cannot withdraw cash or transfer it to anyone. (7/n)
Cryptocurrency?? Let’s put it to rest. It is not cryptocurrency. It does sound like one, but it isn’t. It is a prepaid voucher that aims to provide benefits directly to the beneficiaries without any bank account or payment app. (8/n)
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) along with other government departments have developed e-RUPI. (9/n)
This was a short gist that on E-RUPI. We hope you liked it. Don’t forget to retweet this post to your followers. Let me know your thoughts on E-RUPI. Thanks for reading. 😀 (10/10)

Zomato IPO: How much appreciation can one expect? [Hint: The devil is in the details]

If this was not enough, there is another devil in details. The company changed its revenue recognition method midway. Earlier, Zomato counted delivery charges as revenue & netted off the discounts. Since Oct 2019, it converted to a “pure tech platform provider”, whatever that means

Anurag Singh
1)#ZomatoIPO : LONG THREAD: Once in a decade opportunity…. for some? Is the IPO the golden opportunity for investors, as claimed by many? How much appreciation can one expect? A multi-year holding story or just a listing pop. This time it’s different, or is it? Let’s evaluate:
Hmmm, so valuation in Jan 2020 was abt $ 3.0 to $ 3.5 BN. That’s the rate at which Alibaba & Uber bought the stake, just before the pandemic. That grows to $ 8.5 BN in just 18 months ?.Did the market potential change so fast ? What changed ?
What’s more surprising is that the SAME investors are investing money at $ 3.9 BN & then at $ 5.4 BN ie 40% higher in just a span of 2 mths !! Well, if the owners have to sell something 3 times the price in 18 mths, they have to send “signals” that the venture is worth that much
So why did the revenues drop in FY2021 ? Company says – covid lockdown impacted business. Surprising, since online giants grew faster in pandemic. And why should the average order size drop? More importantly, why did new restaurants enrollment didn’t increase much from 143 K odd?
On monthly active users of 42 Mn, do you know that only 52% are from India & rest come from outside? No profitability details are provided for that analysis. We don’t know if global expansion is providing user base growth until IPO without any profitability. Try analysing that.
So Revenue now is the platform & facility fee provided to “delivery partners & restaurants”, & all promotions are included in advt/sales promotions expenses. Now how do you compare FY21 & 20 sales ? Isn’t it prudent to disclose revenues in both old & new methods of accounting?
Add this Rs 2500 crores to FY21 & the losses will be MORE THAN those in 2020. Vola….reduce sales promotion expenses in listing year & show a much lower loss. Agreed that sales is also lower but as discussed, revenue recognition changed midway so what sales do we compare with?
And what is this EPS calculation above ? When profits go up, EPS improves. Here we have losses. But the share base is also 25% up from FY 2020. So EPS (Loss) per share looks smaller than it actually is. As you can see, it is meaningless to compare EPS loss on increased share base

This gaming app, Genshin Impact is approximately making $6mn monthly in India

Maybe its too early to say it but if Casual RPGs are finding acceptance among Indian users then this might be a genre to watch out for – Strategy RPGs like Lords Mobile have already found a passionate user base in India – Casual ones can open new doors.

Anuj Tandon
People might argue this is because of Massive global UA being done by the game – sure UA is all good but Indians paying $6 Mn monthly run rate for Zelda-esque casual open world RPG with Asian art style game was not in anyone’s 2021 memo list. (2/n) #IndianGaming
The game is super polished – hard to master – probably easier to pick up than most RPGs – maybe that’s what’s working for it in India – more than that if this trends sustain it shows maturing of Mobile Indian Gamers. (3/n) #IndianGaming
No one in Indian gaming industry would have thought in early 2018 that a certain 1 GB mobile game in “Battle Royale” would take over the Indian gaming but Battlegrounds IP literally built the midcore gaming market in India – its easy to miss these pivots. (4/n) #IndianGaming
Maybe its too early to say it but if Casual RPGs are finding acceptance among Indian users then this might be a genre to watch out for – Strategy RPGs like Lords Mobile have already found a passionate user base in India – Casual ones can open new doors. (5/n) #IndianGaming
The Bad: Our game development ecosystem in India still needs more maturity to take advantage of these trend changes. As a development ecosystem we have already proved we can do Casual, Social Casino, word games, Sports genres but.. (6/n) #IndianGaming
… it seems consumers are maturing faster in their gaming preferences than the ecosystem. Bolder gaming bets at a large level by Global, Local and all game developers & publishers in India needs to be supported, encouraged & invested in. (7/n) #IndianGaming
There are Independent Games like Raji – we probably need 10-12 attempts like these happening in a year across India to galvanise the local ecosystem (easier said than done) but unless that happens in the next 2-3 years… (8/n) #IndianGaming
…we will still be searching for “Identity” of the Indian Gaming market – Local IP is super important in galvanising support across the board for any entertainment sector but the consumer will not forgive lesser quality – due to their global exposure. (9/n) #IndianGaming
Needless to say these are my personal thoughts as an active participant in the Indian gaming ecosystem – hopefully the Zynga Alumini exits (Moonfrog & Playsimple) and with so much capital coming in the Indian Gaming – brighter days lie ahead. Fin. (10/10) #IndianGaming

Pandemic 2.0: List Of Resources Helping Migrant Workers During COVID-19!

Several states have started imposing lockdown again and — and to avoid any travel restrictions, a lot of migrant workers are going back to their hometown. According to the district administration of Ghaziabad, 77,000 migrant workers were sent home in over 1,500 buses on Apr 20, 2021.

Unfortunately, Ghaziabad is not the only city witnessing a mass exodus of migrant workers right now. People all over from Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, etc. are going back to their homeland — to avoid what they faced back in 2020. 

Like in 2020, several individuals and communities have come forward helping migrant workers to ensure safe travel for them.

NextBigWhat decided to bring you everything in one place. Following are some of the resources — active & verified — which are helping migrant workers, the less privileged section and people in need.

Organizations working towards supplying daily essentials and help

1. Born to Win

This Chennai based foundation started “Feed the needy” mission for COVID-19 relief — it provides food, ration and essential commodities to old-age homes, orphanages, migrant workers, rural areas, and the homeless.

Operational area: Chennai
E-mail: b2wborntowin@gmail.com 
Website: www.b2wfoundation.org 

2. Indian Centre for Development & Rights (ICFDR)

ICFDR distributes essential ration kits that can last for about 30 days to needy people. They have already distributed 2500+ ration kits and impacted over 3000 people.

Operational areas: Delhi, Bareilly, Badaun, Dehradun, Chennai, Salem, Itanagar, Pune, Jaipur and Lucknow
E-mail: reachus@icfdr.org 
Website: www.icfdr.org 

3. For Daily Wagers

It acts as a platform to connect a donor with a beneficiary in need to send essential items to them. The donor is supposed to place an order of groceries through a third party online platform and get it delivered at the provided address. The team of volunteers stays in touch with both the beneficiary and the donor throughout the process to ensure the delivery reaches every beneficiary assigned by the team. 

Operational areas: Delhi & Mumbai
Contact Person: Rehan Gupta
Contact Number: +91 9967135518
Website: www.fordailywagers.com 

4. SOUL

SOUL is a non-profit Charitable trust, working on feeding daily labours in/ around Kolkata and Sundarban in West Bengal. Under the program “LunchBox For Hungers”, they have distributed free lunchboxes along with evening meals to tribal people of Sundarban and daily wage earners in Kolkata and outskirts.

Operational areas: Sundarban, Kolkata and Jhargram in West Bengal
Contact Person: Subhankar Banerjee
Contact Number: 9836253999
Website: www.teamsoul.org

5. Humanity First

It helps the needy and underprivileged in several parts of the country. So, far, their team has helped with donating grocery items, masks, sanitizers, gloves and drinking water etc.

Operational areas: Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, AP, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Coimbatore, Orissa, Kolkata, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, UP and Kashmir
Contact Person: Shameem Ahmad
Contact Number: 9988991775
E-mail: humanityfirstind@gmail.com 

6. Rasoi on Wheels

A mobile kitchen service that is providing packed meal boxes to the less privileged section of our society. For the COVID-19 crisis, it is working closely with groups and organizations to provide cooked meals and dry rations to daily wage labourers in Delhi-NCR.

Operational area: Delhi
Contact Person: Atul Kapur
Contact Number: 9811015420
Website: www.rasoionwheels.com

Organizations working towards skill development and creating opportunities

7. PanIIT

It is a group of all IITs’ alumni that works towards offering skill development programmes to vulnerable migrant labour. It aims to enhance the incomes and livelihoods of the undeserved.

Website: www.paniit.org 

8. Aajeevika Bureau

This Udaipur based not-for-profit provides job opportunities to the rural poor; especially migrant workers who move to cities in search of employment. The daily wage and migrant workers are connected with job providers and issued with an identity card so that they have access to all government schemes and initiatives.

Website: www.aajeevika.org 

9. Khalsa Aid

The UK-based humanitarian relief organisation is working around the clock to distribute langar and ration kits among the needy, migrant and sanitation workers. In 2020, close to 32,000 Khalsa Aid volunteers were on the ground, working across the country

Website: www.khalsaaid.org

MAJOR HELPLINES:

Andhra Pradesh: 9177611110
Assam: 8527612266/ 9622989797
Bihar: 9431815833
Odisha: 9437210000
Uttar Pradesh: 9871115034/ 9437210000
West Bengal: 9830154101

For more details, visit: www.dailywageworker.com/migrant-helplines

PS: We’ll keep updating this list with the latest data and resources. Let us know if you want us to add something in particular that’s helping migrant workers. #StaySafe #MakeAnImpact #TowardsABetterWorld 

ALSO READ: Pandemic 2.0: List Of Coronavirus Resources You Need To Know About!

Pandemic 2.0: List Of Coronavirus Resources You Need To Know About!

Coronavirus 2.0 is at our doorstep — much stronger and deadly than last time. And while the government is trying to do every possible thing to curb it off (well, let’s assume), there are fallback, and people are losing their lives.

To fight this at a societal level, several individuals, communities, and nonprofits have come forward to help and assist in almost everything. Unfortunately, very few people are aware of these initiatives.

NextBigWhat decided to bring you everything in one place. Following are some of the coronavirus resources — active & verified — which you may refer to and share with those in need.

For COVID-19 bed availability details:

  • Near Terminal 1, Next to Raksha Sampada Bhavan.

The Corona patient needs to carry his/ her Aadhar Card & Positive RTPCR report for admission. The officers incharge of this facility are Maj Gen Bhatia, +919654895961 & Col Gulshan Saini, +91 99686 56990. Everything is FREE.

For all the updated information of COVID-19:

These websites have information about fever clinics, oxygen cylinders, COVID hospital’s, ambulance services, bed availability, guidelines, govt orders, notifications and COVID-19 burials. 

Consolidated list of plasma resources for those in need in India:

COVID-19 plasma donor – recipient help group

1) KAB Welfare Foundation : 9810063261
https://www.facebook.com/kamlaarorablessings/

2) NDTV plasma donation initiative
Email: feedback@ndtv.com
WhatsApp : 9910668811

3) Panthak Saanjh Initiative
Arranging donors for the patients at the time of emergency
Sunny Khera: +91-9999992492
Gurbrinder Singh: +91-9958525752

4) All India group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/556579325240584/?ref=share

Coronavirus resources: for medical and plasma requirements:

https://forms.gle/r4qBphwvSjqWrU9J9

For becoming a potential plasma donor:

https://forms.gle/3k77WEBxeJf4CTCw9

For sanitized and well-equipped ambulances with ventilators, within 15 to 20 minutes across Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru:

https://www.gethelpnow.in/ [88 99 88 99 52]

Oxygen & Medicine Availability – City Wise:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQLa5IUS7JfyoxIOWY53QWKgwFKko542K6lJpWkEq7oZRM79Y1H92YZNUZTOrFhWK2n3P6admdwU8YH/pub

List of NGOs providing relief during COVID-19 across India:

Anyone requiring injection Remdesivir can get @ Rs 899/- as against Rs.4000/- charged by medical shops. 

Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Kendra Borivali West

Address:
Shop No 4, Bethlehem Apartments
Near Domino’s and Bhagwati Hospital
SVP Road, Borivali West
Mumbai – 400103

Store Timings:
9:30 AM to 9:00 PM (All days open) 
Phone and WhatsApp Number – 9969308613
Direct WhatsApp link – http://wa.me/919969308613
Landline Number – 022-28943789
Contact Person – Vijay Gosar

Documents required:
1) Patient’s Aadhar card
2) COVID-19 positive report
3) ORIGINAL Doctors prescription 
4) Aadhar card of person taking medicine

PS: We’ll keep updating this list with the latest data and resources. Let us know if you want us to add something in particular. #StaySafe #StayHome 

After newspapers, news channels are seeking compensation from Google (over lost revenue)

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/media/entertainment/media/after-newspapers-news-channels-body-writes-to-google-seeking-compensation-for-content/articleshow/81433597.cms

“Advertising revenues form the backbone of the news broadcasters,” said Rajat Sharma, president of NBA (News Broadcasters Association), in the letter. “However, they (news broadcasters) are seeing their share of the advertising pie shrinking in the digital space, since technology giants are taking away the major chunk, leaving news broadcasters with a nominal share.”

India’s Fintech Future: What Lies Ahead

After analyzing the financial statement (FY20) of 10 fintech companies, including mine I have come to the following conclusion about Indian fintech customers in this thread:

1. Retail Subscriptions based services has not picked up in India for serious domains like financials

2. Indian consumers love free service and won’t mind if you make indirect earnings from them by pushing advertisements and third party products.
3. Difficult to charge customer for advisory as very few people would value the same, especially online
4. Cross selling is the final game, so mutual fund distributors and/or nextgen stock brokers will eventually sell high yield services like loan/global markets etc to their existing customer base.

But question remains will that truly lead to conversions ?

5. The leader will make most of the money and there will be a huge gap between number 1 and number 2. Hence the quest is to be a leader of the domain come-what at any price. Here the high valuation and getting regular funding becomes the core business model for first few years.
6. There is a massive push to create new categories in all domains. India is witnessing evolution of micro categories and one major leader in that category. E.g @elearnmarkets is leader in financial education and @mystockedge is the leader in stock and mutual funds EOD analysis.
7. Leadership at this stage of product life cycle is NOT about the revenue, its about the top of the funnel which gives future potential to generate revenue. Classic case study is @amazon in US and @IndiaMART in India.
8. Most of the tech enabled startups have losses due to Employee cost and User acquisition cost. Both I believe should be capitalized and both have long term benefits and are assets. Its like machinery for any new factory. The accounting treatment needs more reworking.
9. The finance industry is going through massive transition from intermediary lead model to platform. But the maturity of customer to pay for the platform is a big question. There are some players trying hybrid model, but they are also struggling with their core DNA.
10. Having said all these, I strongly feel fintech industry will change forever in coming 10 years. There will be AI engines which will guide the new investors.

As findata quality improve and we get more about a user, the recommendation engine will improve.

But will they pay ?