Temple and Panchayat payments go digital in next fintech wave

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

digital payments will be led by ‘person-to-government’ payments moving away from cash.

Adhering to the Digital India policy, the government-backed National Informatics Centre (NIC) is building applications which can accept payments digitally, make settlements and generate invoices — all in one go for different government departments.

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While traffic challans went digital in the first wave, now the government is trying to digitise payments at the village level too. Panchayat tax payments and municipal corporation payments are going digital as well.

Taking even a step further, the NIC is also testing out digitisation of temple donations. In partnership with payment major Worldline, some pilots are being run in Tamil Nadu, said two people in the know.

“What used to be hundi where people would drop their donations or make payments to the temple trust are all getting digitised through these apps built into the PoS terminal,” a senior fintech executive said on the condition of anonymity.

A PoS, or a point-of-sales, terminal can process card and UPI payments. The apps that are being developed can accept payments against bills that have been generated against citizen services. They can also generate receipts and reconcile the transaction. Through PoS terminals, which can accept both card and UPI payments, the government is looking to digitise all person-to-government payments.

Consultancy major PwC noted, in a report titled Indian Payments Handbook-2022-27