Journey of Cashless Road to Sweden: Opportunities and Barriers for India

Journey of Cashless Road to Sweden: Opportunities and Barriers for India

Shivam Kaila

Shoolini Univeristy, Himachal Pradesh

Abstract:- Sweden is the most cashless society on the planet, with barely 1% of the value of all payments made using coins or notes last year. The main reason behind achieving this goal is that they wanted to minimise the risk of robberies and it is quicker with the customers when they pay by card. Indias dream of becoming a Digital India has left far behind even after applying different policies. Therefore, it is imperative to understand how a small country like Sweden in Europe can achieve this target but not a country called an emerging super power, India cannot. This report discusses the strategies and tactics that are being used by Sweden bank in order to make a push towards the cashless society. This report will also try to make us understand why India is not yet successful in achieving the aim of Digital India despite being implementing various policies moreover the opportunities and barriers that India will be having on its way. However, we will try to identify the things that India can learn and implement from Sweden. The information I am going to give will be based on secondary data taken from various research papers, journals and online sources.

Keywords: Sweden, India, Cashless society

CHAPTER- 1 INTRODUCTION

Sweden was the first country in Europe who introduces the paper money in early 1661. In the meantime, it is also becoming the worlds first cashless country where minimum cash is used. Eventually, it will also become the first country from where cash will vanish completely. Payments play a wider role in the exchange of money for goods and services between sellers and buyers. In the last few years, Sweden central bank has witnessed change in the behaviour of how civilians of Sweden are paying however, there is a drop analysed in the use of cash as payment method both in terms of value and in terms of frequency.

There was a report issued by Riks bank wherein they stated that in terms of transaction volumes, retail payments are dominating card payments in Sweden. Usually the cards that are issued in Sweden are commonly connected to one of the international systems, visa or master card. If we talk in terms of transaction value, credit transfers and direct debits together accounts for the massive majority of all non-cash transaction while card transactions only accounts for a minor part. Number of cheques and its value transactions, money orders or any other paper based credit and debit payment instruments are very low.

Sweden is likely to become the first cashless society in the world because of the two things; one is its central bank and the other one is the mobile payment system. Sweden is said to be the home of worlds oldest central bank in the world i.e. Riks Bank. The whole payment system is driven by the card and cash payments. The most important difference between the two systems is that cash has its own value in comparison to cards, which act as an initiator for the payments.

India is a cash dominant country even after the push of the government to cashless transactions, going cashless is still a big task for Indians. Sweden is likely to become the first cashless nation in this world that is the reason Sweden is taken as the benchmark in this study. It is highly challenging in case of India to fulfil the dream of Digital India, because of the lack of cyber security, high illiteracy rate and poverty.

An initiative, which is started by Prime Minister Narender Modi in 2015 by the name The Digital India that is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Faceless, Paperless and Cashless is vision of this programme. Major progress under this role is seen in late 2016, when government took the decision to demonetize the country. This is further an attempt to produce a society that is fully digitally empowered, with financial inclusion contributing to a formal economy. Not only connectivity is the main reason behind this programme but also the data, which will be produced with the help of digitization, will be leveraged for the host of applications.

However, there are certain challenges in doing cashless transaction. People in India feel unsecure while doing it because of the security, as a major issue. They feel that device that is being used for cashless transaction can be hacked or the transaction might be hanged in between. The issues and challenges affecting the cashless economy drive in India is primarily because of two reasons: One is population and the other one is huge economic disparity. India, with a population of more than 1.2 billion having different economic and social backgrounds with the federal structure in the governance. This states that no matter central government has the power to initiate such a move, there will always be a conflict between central and state government. About huge economic disparity, which exists in different states of India.

Objectives:

• To study the overall journey of Sweden cashless society.

• To study the problems and opportunities for India to cashless road.

• To identify the aspects that India can learn and implement from Sweden.

CHAPTER-2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Goswami (2016) the researcher gives an attempt to identify the different challenges faced by Digital India Programme. At the last of the research, the researcher was able to draw few challenges like diversification, public interest etc. So at present it is highly expected to boost the initiation of DIP as the implementation of Digital India Programme includes many difficulties.

Arvidsson (2016) draws a conclusion that Sweden will become 100% cashless but not before the year 2030. The major reason behind the most cashless society on the planet is the bank accounts in which salaries and wages started being paid in early 1960. It is also said to be the backbone plus. However, consumers put the high trust in the payment system.

Wood (2016) witnessed that In contrast there are many benefits to cashless society The most important among all is that it includes a less costly and more efficient payment system which is possible to generate higher economic activities. Risk of robberies is ultimately going to end, as stores will no longer carry cash. Swedens move towards the cashless society will not negatively affect the Riks Bank ability to conduct monetary policies.

Sagayarani (2017) tries to understand two things: First, weather going cashless is helping Indians or not. Secondly, Will India turn out to be a successful cashless society or not wherein he used both primary and secondary data. The sample design consists of 150 respondents and the questionnaire was distributed with the help of emails. The major findings that come out of this were out of 100 respondents, 90% of the respondents feel that it is easier, quicker and simple steps are followed during the payment, 2% feel that it is tricky and using cash is reliable and remaining 8% feel are not excited about the introduction of this method. 66% of the Indians feel that India will surely move towards a cashless society.

Bagga (2017) illustrates the various benefits and drawbacks of adopting cashless economy especially terms of developing country with its technological and India advancements, as India is one of them. She comes with a conclusion that government is taking many steps to make this online payment system popular, but government really needs to work hard and prepare or the smooth implementation of cashless economy.

Mishra (2017) states the determination of Govt. of India in promoting cashless transactions plus the steps that are being taken by the government to make this dream come true. She came with the conclusion that cash will remain in the market as the crocodile in the water. Cash consumption as an amount of overall spending in the local economy will continue to decline and in the near future consumers will relish the choice of paying for the goods and services.

Arvidsson et. al. (2017) concluded in his research that the demand from the customers is the most important factor while the merchants who wishes to boost sales with respect to acceptance of cash payments, is the second most important factor. He also witnessed the drop in the use of cash, both in terms of value and frequency.

Jakobsson (2017) aims to investigate the market willingness by checking the difference in usage of Internet and Mobile banking by Swedish people. The survey was having 10 questions with the sample size of 203 respondents. In order to collect answers, researcher uses the platform of Facebook with respect to time efficiency. The result shows that 57% respondents were women and 43% were male. The result shows that mobile banking seems to be a popular way to handle bank tasks rather using Internet banking.

Ahmed (2017) the study focussed on the comparative study of cashless situation in India with other countries plus to find out the possibilities for India, for becoming the cashless society. The researcher came up with the conclusion that Demonetisation has prepared a roadmap for Cashless India. However, there are more possibilities of keeping record on the transactions in cashless economy, which further helps to grab black money. But at this point of time going cashless will not be a wise decision as government has to look after their structural challenges (mobile penetration rate, low literacy rate in rural areas etc.). However, less cashless economy is a better concept for Indian economy at this point of time.

Shendge et al (2017) conducted a study on Impact and Importance of Cashless Transactions in India. This study focuses on the impact and importance of cashless concept in India as cashless policy will increase employment, reduce cash related robbery. Cashless policy will also reduce cash related corruption and attract more foreign investors to the country. In many countries

introduction of cashless economy can be seen as steps in the right direction. It is expected that its impact will be felt in modernization of payment system, Reduction in the cost of banking service, Reduction in high security and safety risk and curb banking related corruption. Electronic banking will be made banking transaction to be easier by bringing services closer to its customers hence improving banking industry performance. . A large number of businesses, even street vendors, are now accepting electronic payments, prompting the people to learn to transact the cashless way at a faster pace than ever before.

CHAPTER-3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study is based on secondary data. Different research papers, news articles and appropriate websites have been used in order to make the study more appropriate and effective one. In order to fulfil the objectives, this study examines the pace and strategies, moreover the journey of Sweden to the cashless world and the on the same hand the problem and opportunities for India. The study examines the pace of Sweden in achieving the cashless society and the overall scenario of Sweden and India both, in terms of cashless.

Sources of Data:

Study is based only on the secondary data. The source of secondary data is collected from the various records of UNESCO, Digital India, World Economic Forum, International Journal of Business Quantitative Economic and Applied Management Research, International Journal of Advanced Research in Management, News Article, NIPFP, J-Store, Google Scholar, International Education and Research Journal, World Wide Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research and Development (links are mentioned in the references). The collected data shows how Sweden went cashless plus the opportunities and barriers for India with special reference to the most cashless nation on the planet, Sweden.

Note: For the reliability of the secondary data, data is collected from the big database, organizations and international journals. Data is collected from the various documents mention below:

• Government publication reports

• Earlier research paper on the same topic

• Reports from international journals

• Research Papers

• News articles

CHAPTER-4 DATA ANALYSIS

1. Swedens journey

   Sweden is commonly said as a technology-friendly country. The infrastructure for the Internet and telecommunications is extensive and a high proportion of households have access to and use new technology such as home Internet, smart telephones and tablets. There are a number of reasons Sweden is becoming a cashless society. The birthplace of Skype and Spotify, Sweden is known as high tech and innovative country, so it is of no surprise that Swedes are embracing digital payments.

   The majority of the Swedish population have smartphones and tablets and are happy to use them for financial transactions.

   In addition, cash is expensive for banks, and so, according to the Swedish national bank, Riksbank, financial institutions are just as keen as consumers to switch from cash to electronic payments are. There are fewer large banks, which means that cooperation on payments is relatively straightforward.

   Swedish society is also characterized by a high level of confidence in the suppliers of payment services, which makes people more willing to embrace technology.

   Table 4.1.1

   YEAR	EVENTS
   1961	Bank Notes
   1960	Wages and Salaries
   1990	Cheques
   2010	E-commerce
   2012	Panaxia
   2014	Reducing cash handling services

   Source: Arvidsson, Lessons from Sweden

   This table(4.1.1) tells us some of the events that has happened in the Sweden history, which directly or indirectly helped Swedish to be the worlds number one cashless society.

   1661: In 1661, Sweden introduced first bank notes in Europe.

   1960: In 1960, companies started to pay wage and salaries direct to bank accounts of employees rather than paying in cash. This is said to be the first step of Swedens cashless ladder. This also set the base of electronic banking system.

   1990: In 1990s, the system for card payments was build and cheques were phased out via new fees.

   2010: In 2010 E-commerce grows at a peak, which helped in stimulating the new payment solutions from banks, social media, entrepreneurs (Apple, Google, PayPal etc.) Which comes out to be attractive for young people who used to be active on internet.

   2012: In 2012, one cash-in-handling transit service company- Panaxia- that helped in filling the bankruptcy after criminal acts. This helped in reducing the trust in the industry as well as higher service fees. Panaxia worked as Security Company that transports cash and other valuables. The company also helps in installation and support for security equipment. Panaxia is formerly known as Panaxia AB and Bromma based company in Sweden.

   2014: In 2014, banks started reducing the cash handling services, which is said to be the turning point in the payment system of Sweden. People were forced to use the cashless mean of transaction.

   The use of ATMs is usually done for the use of cash or access to it. In the last five years, cash withdrawals have decreased both in terms of number and value, which poves that cash usage, is decreasing.

2. Statistical View:

   Table 4.2.1

   ATM withdrawals are decreasing
   	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
   Number of ATMs	3416	3237	3231	3285	2850
   Number of transactions (millions)	214	183	167	154	136
   Transaction value (SEK billion)	193	174	171	153	108

   Source: Riks Bank

   The table (4.2.1) shows that ATM withdrawals are decreasing with time (2012-2016). The reasons is banks are also decreasing their ATMs and their goal is very clear that they want to be the first cashless society in the world. The number of ATMs are decreased from 3416 to 2850 from the year 2012 to 2016

   Table 4.2.2

   Payment Terminals
   	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
   Number of ATMs	198388	195709	196985	226548	257874
   Number of transactions (millions)	2048	2329	2423	2657	2809
   Transaction value (SEK billion)	654	722	754	794	997

   Source: Riks Bank

   Note: The transaction value is given here in Swedish Krona.

   This table helps us to understand the number of payments made through the cards in terms of million from year 2012 to 2016. Again, we can see that there is rise in the number of transactions and their value as people the number of cards are also increasing.

   Table 4.2.3

   Number of transaction, millions
   	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
   Card Payments	2190	2398	2620	2845	3173
   Debit Cards	1810	1987	2170	2404	2672
   Credit Cards	380	411	450	441	501
   Credit Transfers	859	894	957	1074	1303
   Electronic	789	827	888	1016	1244
   Form	70	67	69	58	59
   Direct Debit	297	312	323	280	301
   Cheques including bank drafts	0	0	0	0	0
   Total	3346	3604	3900	4199	4777

   Source: Riks Bank

   Table 4.2.3 helps in understanding the number of transactions in millions from the year 2012 to 2016. It has witnessed that the card payments, credit transfers and direct debits have increased from year 2012 to 2016.

   Table 4.2.4

   Value of transactions, SEK billion
   	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
   Card payments	849	900	980	916	1003
   Debit cards	617	658	719	709	773
   Credit cards	232	242	261	207	230
   Credit transfers	13633	14175	14770	13043	14561
   Electronic	13471	14024	14627	12815	14381
   Form	162	151	142	228	180
   Direct debit	545	553	558	478	508
   Cheques	41	13	7	4	4
   Total	15067	15641	16315	14441	16076

   Source: Riks Bank

   Table 4.2.4 helps in understanding the value for card payments, credit transfers and direct debits. It has witnessed that there was increase in all these three modes of payments from year 2012 to 2016.

   Some critical events in Indian cashless history

   Table 4.2.5

   Year	Event
   1999	Only 800 ATMs in India
   2014	Jan Dhan Yojana is a National Mission for Financial Inclusion to ensure access to financial services, namely, Banking/ Savings & Deposit Accounts
   2015	ICICI adopted a village named Akodara in Sabarkantha, promised to make it digital in India and now it is known as Indias first Digital Village.
   2015	Digital India will help increase in the number of users opting for online banking is expected to double to reach 150 million mark by 2020, says Digital India
   2016	Demonetisation
   2017	Installing 10,000 POS machines at Indian Railway Station
   2017	Internet connectivity Under the Bharat Net project, all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country will be connected with the internet by December 2018.

   Note: Following are some of the events that happened in India with respect to cashless society, analysed after reading various papers and articles.

   This table helps us in understanding some of the critical events that are happened in India, which plays a vital role in promoting cashless transactions, directly or indirectly.

3. Barriers for India: The barriers for India are in context of what is required for cashless transactions with special reference to Sweden as Sweden is far ahead of India. Following are the barriers for India:

   Figure 4.3.1

   Banking

   Frauds

   Varied India

   Internet Speed

   Barriers for India

   Internet Penetration rate

   Consumer Behaviour

   Inadequate POS

   machines

   Literacy Rate

   Internet speed: The major barrier that India is yet facing if compared to Sweden is its Internet speed, both the mobile internet speed and broadband speed. As it is clear from the table below that both, mobile internet speed and broadband speed are far behind from Sweden. If we talk in rankings, in case of mobile internet speed India stood at 109th rank and Sweden is at 17th rank, whereas in case of broadband speed, India stood at 67th rank and Sweden is at 6th rank in the world. India has to work on its internet speed in order to cross the first barrier.

   100

   90

   80

   70

   60

   50

   40

   30

   20

   10

   0

   18.82

   Figure 4.3.2

   Broadband & Mobile Internet Speed (In Mbps)

   93.42

   .8

   38.62

   India Sweden India Sweden Broadband Speed Mobile Internet Speed

   Source: Live mint and Speedtest.net

   Internet penetration rate: The other major thing, in which India is lacking, is there internet penetration rate. Sweden in more than double in this case with 95% of internet penetration rate whereas India is only 44.66% (462 million), however 2 years back it was 26%. It has increased very fast but still a long way to go for a developing country. However, there is a report published by Internet and mobile association of India wherein they stated that by 2018 internet users in India will reach to 500 million.

   Consumer Behaviour: Apart from all the major issues, consumer-spending issue is the most common and important issues which came up. Country like India where most of the people have the habit of dealing in cash. Two things needed to be changed; one is agent; they should rely more intangible things rather tangible which can be touched and the second thing is individuals have to rely on technological advancements, which can be used for daily operations. Even after one year of demonetisation, there was a report issued by Reserve Bank of India wherein they stated that cash in circulation even after one year of demonetisation is 99.17% equal to the cash in circulation that was before demonetisation which proves that people are again depending upon cash rather dependency on digital means. This has created a chaos between Economists of India because they claimed that demonetisation has facilitated digitisation of payment system.

   Literacy Rate: The population of illiterate people in India is in big amount as compare to other countries especially Sweden. India is having the literacy rate of 74.04%, which proves that India still have some amount of people who are not able to read and write. Talking about Sweden, it stand at number 5 in terms of literacy rate with the percentage of around 99% from last few years. Inadequate POS machines: India with the population of more than 1.2 billion has only 14 lacs point of sale terminals, which is considered too low. Particularly, in case of suburban and rural areas, there is a heavy shortage of point of sale terminals. However,

   the country has about 15 million merchants where POS terminals can be fixed. For a vast country like India, having 2.3 lakhs ATM and 14 lac POS terminals are not sufficient. Whereas Sweden has POS terminals per million inhabitants.

   Varied India: India is known for its diversity in terms of its culture. Each state has its own language, food habits, laws and

   tradition. One initiative is working over it and that is Digital India, which aims to convert India fully digital. Integration of language at one place is the major challenge hat Digital India Programme will face.

4. Opportunities for India: Below is the table that is showing some opportunities that India is having on its way of Digital India:

Figure 4.4.1

Increasing urbanization

Increasing penetration of smartphones

Opportunities for India

Raising trends of ecommerce

Government initiatives

Increasing Smart phone penetration in India: Indian customers are shifting from featured phones to Smartphones because of the low prices of phones with affordable internet packs. Total number of smart phone users in India is said to be around 300 million in 2017. Every Indian bank including public sector banks, they are playing a major role in the increasing users of smart phones as they are committed to provide mobile banking facilities. However, each bank has their own m-wallet, which keeps the customers engage with the smart phone. Even, the volume of transactions for m-wallets rose from 50.31 million in May 2016 to

241.72 million in 2017. India holds 4th rank across the globe in adoption of mobile banking facilities. However, the total number of smart phone users in 2022 is estimated to reach 442.5 million, which will create a boom in cashless economy.

Raising trends of e-commerce: The E-commerce market in India has grown from $4.4 billion in 2010 to around $16 billion in 2015 and expected to reach $76 billion by 2021. The forces that lead to raise trends of e-commerce is their 24*7 technical support, delivery channels, logistics, home deliveries (every type of delivery) and increasing smartphone penetration. Increasing e- commerce penetration is also contributing in Digital India. In 2016 alone, over 69 million Indians bought their apparels and accessories, books, mobiles, laptops, and other electronic items online. By 2020, this number is expected to rise to over 175 million owing to the technology, transformation led by the rise in the use of smartphones and tablets, and improved access to the low-cost internet.

Government initiatives: In last three years Narendra Modi lead NDA government come up with innovative ideas and took several initiatives such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna with a goal of opening bank account for every household, in order to bring comprehensive financial inclusion in India. In the mid of December 2016, government announced two schemes; one is Lucky Grahak Yojna and the other one is Digi-Dhan Vyapaar Yojna, which were specially focussed on the consumers and merchants who will use digital way of their consumption and expenditure between transactions Rs50-Rs3000. The selection was based on Transactions ID. The only purpose was to bring the poor and middle people up. The prizes for consumers of LGY was in the order that there was Rs1000 for 1500 people every day for continuously 100 days and weekly prices of Rs1 lac, Rs10000, Rs5000 for 7000 people using modes of Digital payments like UPI, USSD and Ru-pay cards (excluding all the private e-Wallets and cards). DDVY delivered prices for merchants of Rs50, 000, Rs5, 000, Rs2, 500 weekly.

A super draw was conducted by the government on 14th April 2017 worth Rs1 Crore, Rs50 lakhs, Rs25 lakhs for using digital way of payment from 8th November-13th April.

For merchants too, there was a super draw announced on 14th April for using digital way for transactions worth Rs50 lakhs, Rs25 lakhs, and Rs12 lakhs. Even the poor were having opportunity to get this reward by using USSD mode of payment.

Below is the table showing growth of Pradhan Mantri- Jan Dhan Yojana in crores (as on 04/04/2018)

Table 4.4.2

This table helps us in understanding the growth of Pradhan Mantri – Jan Dhan Yojana. The total beneficiaries as of 04/04/2018 after the launch of this scheme is 31.42 crores and the total money that got deposited in the accounts were 79012.10 crores. The government was able to issue the total of 23.66 crores of Rupay debit cards.

Increasing Urbanization: Under the new initiative, introduced in February 2017, Digital Village, the Indian government aims to bring free Wi-Fi to 1050 villages. Additional services of LED street lighting, Wi-Fi hotspot, skil development, information and interactive sessions with experts, government officials, etc. to be provided at the gram panchayat level. Many more villages like Akodara in Gujarat which is known as Indias first Digital Village, will come. Seventy years after independence, India is racing to connect thousands of villages with electricity but now the right time has come when government unveiled Rs16,320 crore Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya) in September to provide electricity connection to around 4 crore families in rural and urban areas by March 2019. These all initiatives of Government of India will ultimately lead India to urbanization and of course helps in Digital India.

4.5 What India can learn from Sweden?

Figure 4.5.1

29 countries 1 agreement

Spending behavior needs to be improved

SEQR

PSD2

Simplify the experince to everyone

29 countries 1 agreement: Companies like Trustly needs to be introduced in India wherein with the help of one app we can send or receive money by signing an agreement from bank accounts in 29 European countries and can reach more customers at no additional cost. Trustly lets people pay for things online directly from their bank accounts, rather than doing so via a credit or debit card. A customer just clicks on the Trustly button, logs in, and can pay that way.

SEQR: SEQR enables anybody with a mobile to pay in stores, online, at restaurants, parking lots, transfer money at no charge. Connect loyalty programs, store receipts and receive offers and promotions directly through one mobile app. Merchants love the SEQR solution because the cost of transactions falls dramatically. A merchant using SEQR for instance is only charged 0.50 0.98% -of the transactions value, two third lesser than what credit card companies will charge. What make SEQR different is that we have the ability to pay and extend your parking directly in SEQR at selected parking lots. Then we get a text message as a reminder when its fifteen minutes left of your time. You now have the possibility to extend the parking time without having to go back to the parking lot. The price for the parking is the same, only more convenient. It also does not require any physical customer and the terminal, simply we can choose the contact from our contact list and then we can directly send the money. It helps in increasing the level of security as no sensitive information such as card number or personal information leaves the phone.

Spending behaviour needs to be improved: In recent years, the way Indian consumers are spending on various items has changed. In Urban India, the consumer expenditure for averagely 30 days was divided in to food and non-food. Food expenditure includes milk products, vegetables, edible oil and other eating things whereas non-food expenditure includes fuel and light, clothing, footwear and other living expenses. It has witnessed that in India, people with higher income group spends more of their income on luxury items and products, which are in trend. About middle class, they spend their income more on consumer expendables.

Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2): This directive is going to change the banking as we look in to it because from this year onwards, banks will not be working for their competition but only for the financial services. After the implementation of Revised Payment System drive, banks monopoly on their customers account information and payment services is about to disappear. In short, banks will allow customers to give allowance to third party to manage their finances. For example: We might give permission to Facebook to Google to pay our bills, person to person transfer while we still have money in our account. Banks will no longer only be competing against banks, but will be offering financial services.

Simplify the experience to everyone: Something like Lendify is need to be introduced in the economy. Lendify offers the first real P2P lending platform in Sweden. The Company operates a marketplace online credit platform that enable people to borrow money and lend money from each other without the involvement of banks or credit card companies. By cutting out the middlemen and bypassing many of the traditional banking costs, Lendify is able to provide great rates for borrowers and attractive returns for investors. For borrowers, the application can be done through the web app. For lenders, they can simply put their money into Lendify to provide loans to borrowers. Therefore, it is better to use this and find the appropriate one rather than borrowing money from traditional ones.

CHAPTER 5 RECOMMENDATIONS

• India should focus on their technology and infrastructure, as India stands too far in terms of ranking, both broadband speed and mobile internet speed (18.82 Mbps and 8.8 Mbps). India has to work on its internet speed in order to cross the first barrier.

• Education for all is mandatory as if we talk with special reference to Sweden, 9 years of school attendance is compulsory

  after the age of seven and every child has equal access to free education after the age of six, which creates a friendly and safe environment for students.

• Government should work on their broadband connections, both in rural areas and urban areas as govt. has come up with new initiatives but that should be fulfilled.

• People in India are not fully aware/ not having proper information about the process.

• Education institutes can play a big role in making India a Digital India, as Govt. should mandate a lecture on Digital

  India in every educational institute in order to make students aware about the Digital India Programme. It will focus on youth and youth is the future.

• Digital India Programme has to come up with their training centres in each district/state for improving digital literacy and awareness.

• Connect unconnected places by technology

• There should be 2-way communication between citizen and government as this lacks in India. Most of the government

  tasks is being done manually. There is a less of interaction between citizen and government employees. People should get response to their query as soon as possible.

• Wi-Fi cities will change the current scenario of Digital India.

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION

Significant revolutionary moves have been taken in the form of Digital India just to give a push to people for digital means of transactions. India is diversified in its culture; every state has its own laws, rules and regulations, tastes and preferences and behaviour of people. Demonetisation, which is later said to be the digital push towards the cashless economy, has also proved to be the failure after the report by Reserve Bank of India. None other than us can change our country. We need to adopt the digital ways of transactions. The biggest challenge that I have found is Digital illiteracy, inadequate internet penetration of Internet and POS machines. However increase has been found in everything but this increase needs to be little more as India is one of the most populated country in the world.

Although Digital India Programme is helping India in shaping it by connecting people and helping every Indian to make their future better. We Indians have to work together in shaping the economy. However, the road map for cashless has been set. But on the other hand government also has to realize that honesty is not a half way road, if we people of India is trusting the government, then in return government has to provide better infrastructure and facilities in order to make people aware and trust worthy towards the system.

IT (India Talent) +IT (Information Technology) =IT (India tomorrow)

CHAPTER 7 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Arvidsson et al, Jan 2017, Cashless Society: When will merchants stop accepting cash in Sweden, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

2. Arvidsson, Septembr 2017, Lessons from Sweden, INDEK(Department of Industrial Economics and Management) KTH, P4

3. Ayyar, Number of Indian internet users will reach to 500 million by June 2018, The Times of India.

4. Bansal, 2017, Cashless Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in India, World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 3(9), pp-11

5. Bansal, 2017, Cashless Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in India, World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 3(9), pp-11

6. Bansal, 2017, Cashless Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in India, World Wide Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 3(9), pp-11

7. Dalebrant, May 2016, the monetary policy effects of Swedens transition towards a cashless society, University of California, Berkeley, P 3-4

8. Devdiscourse News Desk, March 2018, Sweden can go cashless as early as 2019, says Swedish central bank, Devdiscourse.

9. Dey, November 2017, A Study on Changing Buying Behaviour of Indian Customers, Global Journal of Marketing Management and Research, 7 pp-3

10. Dr Katiyal, June 2017, Moving India into cashless economy: An empirical study, International Journal Business Quantitative Economics and Applied Management Research

11. Ghosh, Turning India into cashless economy: The challenges to overcome, Indian Institute of Management Indore

12. Ghosh, Turning India into cashless economy: The challenges to overcome, India Institute of Management, Indore

13. Goswami, Nov 2016, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAMME, International Education and Research Journal, 2(11), pp- 79

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