Country Payments Market Profile: India

India is home to the second largest consumer base in the world, but to date the fact that a large proportion of the population is unbanked and underbanked has prevented electronic payments from reaching the levels of growth seen in other leading developing markets. Today, however, signs point to an awakening market poised for robust growth in the years ahead.

India has experienced innovations across the different payment segments in recent years, and the launch of new payment products and technologies in the marketplace is anticipated. Mercator Advisory Group expects the Indian market to garner more attention from the global payments industry, particularly within the mobile payment and e-commerce segments, as these segments have the most potential and are expected to undergo the most innovation and change in the next few years. There is still plenty of room for growth within the traditional retail banking and payment card segments as well, and these segments will certainly attract investment and further acquisitions of domestic players by international industry participants.

“The biggest barrier to India’s domestic payments industry is that a very large proportion of the population is unbanked and underbanked. Unless the industry and the government are able to tackle this issue and migrate hundreds of millions of individuals into the electronic payments mainstream, the country will continue to lag behind other leading developing markets like Brazil as well China, the market that is most comparable to India. However, all signs point to this changing in the years ahead as the government and industry double down on their efforts related to financial inclusion,” comments Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director of the Global Payments Advisory Service and author of the research note.

This note contains 12 pages and 6 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this note include: Alibaba, Alipay, American Express, Axis Bank, China UnionPay, Citibank, Discover, Ezetap, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, MasterCard, Paytm, RuPay, State Bank of India, and Visa.

Members of Mercator Advisory Group’s Global Payments Advisory Service have access to these notes as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access, and other membership benefits.