Why our area doesn’t seem to be going cashless

Over the last few days, I’ve had many discussions with various people about going cashless. So far, I haven’t met anyone who applied for internet access if they didn’t already have or installed a payment app if they didn’t already have, contrary to reports in media (which may possibly be largely limited to the metros). Here are some reasons I found out.

Ours is an area that would classify as a town though it has now been clubbed with several other towns into a city. It is close to Mumbai and a lot of people who work in Mumbai but can’t afford to live there live here. About half the population is lower middle class and tenants in the properties of people in Mumbai who have purchased flats here as an investment – me too. There are also several people who are quite poor and live in slums and old buildings in small cramped quarters. In other words, there are few people who’d qualify as rich in this area or even well off enough to not care about monthly budgets – perhaps some of the more prosperous shop owners. Our building is probably among the most “posh” in this area and there are maybe 6 cars parked in the compound with a few hundred flats, and 3 of those are cabs.

Note: I am neither for, nor against the use of cashless transactions. It is a useful method for those willing to spend that little bit extra for convenience. It is invaluable for doing online payments and a handy record of spending in bank account doesn’t hurt for those, like me, who cannot remember where they spend money five minutes later. However, forcing people to go cashless is extremely unwise, in my view. Regardless, this is merely a disclosure of where I stand and the below are not my views. 

Domestic workers

I spoke with several of these. My regular maid usually gets paid into her bank. Another I hired to help her out financially takes cash. Apart from these two, I spoke with about 4-5 others. Only one of them who was previously getting paid in cash is getting paid by cheque this time (she will be withdrawing the money for use, not spending cashless). Among the others, reasons varied. They found the bank intimidating and cash easy and familiar – is a common sentiment. All but one of the others didn’t have their own bank accounts and did not want to deposit their income into the accounts of their husbands or other family members. The remaining one had a bank account in her village, and when she applied for a new cheque book, it got delivered to her village address, so she wants cash till she has a way to withdraw money. Only my maid has a smart phone that is compatible with an app (she didn’t buy it, she is using my old one) and she uses it without an internet connection. The phone automatically connects to the WiFi when she comes into range, but she has never shown any interest in using the internet and is reluctant to do it now. In any case, I would never advise her to begin her introduction to the internet with a high stakes thing like payments.

Vegetable vendors

I’ve spoken with about a dozen of these. Most of them didn’t know about apps. I informed them. They don’t think their transactions are large enough to afford commissions to receive money on. Additionally, there aren’t people buying. No one seems to have asked them if they will accept an app payment, so they don’t think there is any point in using it unless people in the area adopt it.

Grocers

Business is very low for grocers, but none of them showed any interest. When people have money, groceries are a priority, and they usually offer credit to regular buyers at such times, so they don’t think an app will add any business for them. Like the vegetable vendors, no one has offered to pay them by app so far.

Car mechanic

I spoke with one. Business is down enough to be as good as zero. No work other than emergencies like punctures is happening. No one has offered to pay him by app before, but he would consider it if there promises to be a good amount of business. We speculated on the possibility of vehicle owners being likely to own phones that could install such apps and perhaps trying to pay that way if he put up a board, but he didn’t sound anywhere like he was headed for a download. He would have to upgrade his own phone first – it is not a smartphone. Another reason he was reluctant is that he would likely have completed the work first and then if the payment did not happen, he could suffer a loss. I explained that there was very little chance of that happening, but it is unfamiliar tech and he is not internet savvy and I couldn’t with any sense of ethics recommend it beyond discussing it as a possibility for the same reasons as my maid – first experience of the internet being payments is asking for trouble.

Garments shop

I spoke with two. Both had near zero business and were very interested in the app. They had smartphones and had even experimentally downloaded after seeing all the ads. However, the problem is that no one is coming to their shops at all. Whether paying with cash or cashless. There are no customers at all.

Housewives

I spoke with several asking if they had considered buying using an app. All of them had some money (one of them having borrowed from me). All of them had priorities and were managing those priorities in the cash they had, which admittedly is very little. None of them were interested in using an app to buy anything. They would rather cut corners and buy when they had the money. Some were making do with dal and pulses and onions and potatoes they could get on credit from the grocer and skipping buying vegetables when they didn’t have money, but they weren’t interested in installing an app so they could buy clothes – for example.

I am also a stay at home mom, but I am cashless enabled, so to say, so writing my experience separately, because it is different from theirs. I follow news rapidly, and anticipated the problems with cash that would happen, so within the first few days, I had my money converted locally – without paying a single rupee as commission – in medical shops and such. I further withdrew money from ATMs at the crack of dawn to find smaller queues, knowing that people would be needing to borrow as well as my second maid would need a salary. I have cash. There is a Reliance Fresh where I can swipe my card, but I have not used any cashless payment at all since demonetisation, because I believe those unable to accept cashless methods are really suffering for business, so I’d rather spend in their shops.

People with jobs in offices

Most of these in our building are male, but there are a few women too. They mostly seem more inclined to save mone rather than use cards or apps. Most of them have cards. Most of them use cards to withdraw money from ATMs as possible. None of them use cards for anything except withdrawing money from ATMs, though they are aware, and one of them had used cards to make payments before and knows how to do it.

I didn’t find any credit card users other than myself in our building and among people I spoke with. One woman whose husband works abroad has an add on card to his credit card for emergencies, but she has never used it. She is also the one who has used a debit card for purchases before.