Digital Payment Saga: Pandemic Impact on ATM Usage in India

Abstract

In order to make sure that common man gets easy access to all the government services electronically, in the past decade there has been a revolutionary campaign launched by government of India – Digital India programme,. Since then, we are witnessing positive and negative after-effects and experiences in our routine lives. We are front-ending newer challenges and were becoming used-to the new way of getting habitual to the digital way.  Nevertheless, during the Covid-19 lockdown since last year; suddenly access to the cash is remaining essentially critical. As the Banks are focusing more and more on digital services, also branches have reduced working hours  and on the other hand, customers want to avoid face-to-face or in branch interaction with bank officers . In such scenario Automated teller Machine (ATM ) play a critical role in ensuring that consumers get access to their cash 24 Ⅹ 7. Customer’s payment behavior is changing rapidly. Many banks are seeing high adoption of more low-value contactless payments, as well as increased and encouraging online payments transactions. The ATM is still an important self-service channel for cash withdrawal during Covid-19. There are many factors which have influenced customers towards cash withdrawal trends right now. Despite the coronavirus driving up digital transactions, many customers still rely heavily on cash. Customers are seeking more usage of online payments, but also keeping more cash on hand during a crisis period. This paper intends to take a review over this digital payment saga, related trends (esp. inclination of consumers); and how it has impacted the usage of ATM services during this pandemic phase.