Percentage of Indians using cash as primary mode of transaction falls by 50 per cent in 2020: LocalCircles

The percentage of Indians using cash as the primary mode of transactions has gone down by 50 per cent in 2020, as per a survey by LocalCircles on Friday.

New Delhi: The percentage of Indians using cash as the primary mode of transactions has gone down by 50 per cent in 2020, as per a survey by LocalCircles on Friday.

The survey was conducted to understand citizens' purchasing habits with and without a money receipt, and the purpose of that transaction. It then compared this year's findings with a similar survey released in 2019 to understand the trend among citizens transacting in cash without receipt in the last 12 months.

The first question, to which 14,738 responses were received, was, "If you look at the last 12 months, on a regular basis, what percent of your monthly purchases on average were without a receipt?"

Of which, 48 per cent of the respondents said "5-25 per cent", while 34 per cent said "25-50 per cent", and 14 per cent said "50-100 per cent", while the rest four per cent refused to reply.

This is approximately half of the 27 per cent of responses in the "50-100 per cent" category received from survey takers in 2019.

Quoting data received from the Reserve Bank of India, published in October this year, the survey report said that "India in FY 20 witnessed a massive rise in volumes of digital payments to 3,434.56 crore. In five years, i.e., from the period between 2015-16 and 2019-20, digital payments saw an annual growth rate of 55.1 per cent in terms of transaction volumes and 15.2 per cent in terms of value. Only in October 2020, the UPI-based payments hit a new milestone with 207 crore transactions."

The second question in the survey tried to understand for what purposes citizens transacted in cash without a receipt.

(ANI Report)