Economic Shocks Assessment on Digital Payments in India

The economic shocks of Demonetization and Covid-19 severely affected the digital payments scenario in India. The study aims to identify the change in the value and volume of digital payment indicators due to demonetization and Covid pandemic. The study has employed ARIMA Forecasting and Paired Sample T-test to check the combined impact of these economic shocks on the selected digital payment indicators in India which include RTGS, NEFT, IMPS, PPI, Debit Cards and Credit Cards. Both the events of Demonetization and Covid-19 negatively impacted the value and volume of Debit cards and RTGS, whereas these events positively impacted all the other selected payment indicators causing increase in their respective values and volumes. Thus, Demonetization acted as a forced switch towards the usage of digital payment systems where Covid-19 emerged as a mandatory switch towards the adoption of digital payments in India causing augmentation in the value and volume of digital payments indicators of India.