‘Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’ report

‘Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’ report

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Economy 

In news

• NITI Aayog and Mastercard released a report titled ‘Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’.

Key takeaways 

• The report identifies challenges in accelerating digital financial inclusion in India. 
• It provides recommendations for making digital services accessible to its 1.3 billion citizens.

Key recommendations 

• Strengthening the payment infrastructure to promote a level playing field for NBFCs and banks.
• Digitizing registration and compliance processes and diversifying credit sources to enable growth opportunities for MSMEs.
• Building information sharing systems, including a ‘fraud repository’, and ensuring that online digital commerce platforms carry warnings to alert consumers to the risk of frauds.
• Enabling agricultural NBFCs to access low-cost capital and deploy a ‘phygital’ (physical + digital) model for achieving better long-term digital outcomes. 
• To make city transit smoothly accessible to all with minimal crowding and queues, leveraging existing smartphones and contactless cards and make it an inclusive, interoperable, and fully open system