Rural Indians are lagging behind their urban counterparts when it comes to accessing the internet for making digital payments, says a joint study by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and market research agency Kantar IMRB.
The report reveals that in both urban and rural areas, online financial transactions, e-commerce activities as well as digital payments, are lagging behind despite the rolling out of demonetisation drive and Digital India initiative. It added that the situation in rural areas is even worse in last one year.
While 16 per cent of the rural Indians access the internet for their financial transactions, 44 per cent in urban India access internet for their e-payments, said the report.
“A lot of these payments are peer to peer, and therefore there is a multiplier effect. So this has picked up in urban areas but the required critical mass has not been built in rural areas,” said Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Executive Vice-President, Kantar IMRB.
As of December 2017, India had 481 million Internet users, a rise of 11.34 per cent from the previous year.
