Connected Commerce: NITI Aayog

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Recently, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) and Mastercard have released a report titled ‘Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’.

About the Report

• It is based on five roundtable discussions which were held in October and November 2020.
• It highlighted key issues and opportunities on policy and capacity building across agriculture, small business (MSMEs), urban mobility and cyber security.
• Participants: Experts from the government, banking sector, the financial regulator, fintech enterprises, and various ecosystem innovators.
• Key issues addressed during the knowledge series were, 
  • Accelerating digital financial inclusion for underserved sections of Indian society.
  • Enabling global opportunities for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to ‘get paid, get capital and get digital’ and access customers and ensure their continued resilience.
  • Inspiring trust and security in digital commerce through technological interventions and increasing cyber resilience.
  • Unlocking the promise of digitization in India’s agriculture sector and preparing India’s agri-enterprises for connected commerce.
  • Building robust transit systems for smart cities with a digital roadmap to make transit accessible for all citizens.

Recommendations

• Strengthen the payment infrastructure to promote a level playing field for Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and banks.
• Digitise registration and compliance processes and diversify credit sources to enable growth opportunities for MSMEs.
• Build information sharing systems, including a ‘fraud repository’ and ensure that online digital commerce platforms carry warnings to alert consumers to the risk of frauds.
• Enable agricultural NBFCs to access low-cost capital and deploy a ‘phygital’ (physical + digital) model for achieving better long-term digital outcomes. Digitised land records will also provide a major boost to the sector.
• Make city transit seamlessly accessible to all with minimal crowding and queues, leverage existing smartphones and contactless cards and aim for an inclusive, interoperable and fully open system.

Source: PIB