Pramiti Lonkar

Pramiti Lonkar is an Associate in MicroSave Consulting’s Digital Financial Services - Payments and Distribution domain. She is a public policy graduate who seeks to specialise in financial inclusion and social protection. She has one year of experience as a policy reporter and one year of relevant internship experience in financial inclusion. Her expertise includes digital interventions, gender, impact investing, ESG framework, MSMEs and infrastructure.

Posts by Pramiti Lonkar

UPI 123Pay: The four-leaf clover for feature phone-based payments in India?

UPI broke all records in August 2023. It observed 10.586 billion transactions that amounted to INR 15 trillion (~USD 189.64 billion). It has become the preferred payment choice for digitally-savvy Indians. However, it cannot reach the feature phone users. Its penetration is limited to urban segments with high usage of smartphones and mobile Internet. India is home to 400 million feature phone users. These users have limited avenues for digital transactions. They largely depend on physical access points for financial transactions. This blog discusses an innovative offline payment solution, UPI 123Pay, and its immense potential to bring digital payment convenience to the underserved segment.

Digital payments in India—democratizing financial services for the masses

Digital payments in India are about to reach an inflection point where we expect a threefold growth in value to USD 10 trillion by 2026, with every two out of three payments being non-cash. Our two-part series highlights the evolutionary and revolutionary initiatives in India that are currently driving the growth of digital payments.

Digital payments in India—unlocking an opportunity worth USD 10 trillion

Digital payments in India are about to reach an inflection point where we expect a threefold growth in value to USD 10 trillion by 2026, with every two out of three payments being non-cash. Our two-part series highlights the evolutionary and revolutionary initiatives in India that are currently driving the growth of digital payments.

Conversational Payments on UPI: Unlocking new frontiers for next-generation payments

India stands at the forefront of developing AI capabilities in payment services—FSPs in India have invested more than USD 3.2 billion to create AI-driven solutions. This white paper introduces NPCI’s “Conversational Payments on UPI” solution and discusses how it can provide users with a seamless payment experience. We also explore factors that could influence the adoption of conversational payments in India and opportunities for financial service providers to offer conversational payments-based solutions.

Building an ecosystem of collections through BBPS

Digital payments in India have surged, projected to exceed $10 trillion by 2026. A key contributor is the digitization of bill payments and collections, with BBPS aiming to be India’s primary collections platform, offering secure and standardized solutions. MSC explores BBPS’s journey and future potential in this white paper.

Money Purse Handbook

With Anniyam’s digital platform MoneyPurse, community-based institutions like SHGs can easily digitize their operations and transactions. This can have a significant impact on their efficiency and accountability. This handbook examines the potential of such digital transformations for last-mile financial inclusion institutions like SHGs. It also explains how Anniyam has used Digital Public Infra to build a user-friendly and reliable system to facilitate this process.

How digital payments drive financial inclusion in India: Abridged report

India’s digital payments landscape has transformed dramatically over the past five years. This report, published in collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India, provides a detailed outlook on India’s journey of digital payments, factors affecting the adoption of digital payments among the LMI segment, and products that have revolutionized the space.