Each year, the identity card exhibition CARTES highlights one country among the emerging countries which offers development prospects. For 2012, CARTES has chosen India.
India has the second largest population in the world. What major projects are under way and which ones are in the pipeline? How will smart technologies be part of India’s accelerated economic and social development?
The Aam Aamin
India is the largest parliamentary democracy in the world, but is still largely rural. The Aam Aamin, which translates from Hindi as ‘the common man’ is the number one target for development projects established by the government whose aim is to develop social, financial and digital inclusion.
In November 2010, the UIDAI (Unique Identity Authority of India) and the RGI (Register of India) jointly launched the Aadhaar project which aims to provide 1300 million Indians with biometric identity cards. This project, the largest of its kind in the world, has several objectives, including to fight fraud. By providing a unique and personal identity number, this card will give the population access to services such as health and education. Also, this number will act as a legal address for sending and receiving money, bearing in mind that 45 per cent of the population has neither a bank account nor payment cards.
Relatively unbanked
Since January 2011, the Reserve Bank of India has been campaigning for the adoption of chip cards and secure methods of identification for online transactions. To be independant from the international networks, the NPCI (National Payments Corporation) has launched last March the first national interbank network. Named RuPay, this debit card is offered by a dozen banks and can be used online, at 91,000 ATMs and 590,000 payment terminals. The project, started over five years ago, is part of a national programme to build a functioning payment system with interchange fees much lower than those imposed by the large international networks. As well as being an economic and social challenge for a government wanting to ensure the financial inclusion of a large part of the population, in particular in rural areas, RuPay is also a technological challenge that will have to deal with the roll-out of mobile payment.
Broadband phones
Today, India has more mobile phone owners (678 million in May 2012) than bank card holders (300 million debit, credit and prepaid cards). It is the second SIM card market worldwide after China. Within four years, this country will represent the second largest world market for mobile broadband with 367 million connections. All this fostered the emergence of mobile payment services (Obopay, Paymate, iMobile) and encouraged the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) to develop IMPS (Interbank Mobile Payment Service). This service offers the option to transfer money using a mobile phone. Transactions are done by SMS or using a downloaded application. To date, 43 banks offer this service.
An Indian pavilion will bring together local players in the Indian chip card and identification industry. Indian speakers will share their view of the market and will highlight recent developments and examples of achievements in their country. Finally, a ‘networking cocktail’ will take place on the last day of the exhibition floor and will be an opportunity to sample Indian cuisine.
