Budget Reactions - Mr Himanshu Pujara, Managing Director, Euronet Services India Pvt Ltd

As you must be aware on the announcement related to Financial industry in union budget as the government plans to bring Aadhaar-based payments facility for merchants.

Brief Summary

Govt. expect to increase PoS (Point of Sales) terminals in the country to 10 lakh units for this financial year, and there will be 20-lakh Aadhaar-based payment points. The government has also allocated Rs 2,500 crore benefits for UPI based payments and other digital payments. He also announced exemptions to this sector with excise duty being exempted on various point of sale (POS) machines and iris readers to encourage digital payments.

"The announcements in the budget 2017 - 2018 will definitely help spur the digital payments ecosystem. The initiatives around Bharat Net will allow Indians in the rural parts of the country to participate in the digital payments ecosystem through payment systems like BHIM, IMPS etc. After the push under the PMJDY Program, banking penetration has been achieved across the country, this push aims to improve internet penetration will remove a key impediment to the digital transactions in the distant parts of the country. This coupled with the amount reserved by the government to drive adoption of UPI based and other digital payments by merchants and consumers will aid the adoption of these payment instruments beyond the 15% (3G / 4G) data enabled smart phone users and mobile subscribers across the country. The tax breaks for POS terminals and other readers / devices that leverage the Aadhar framework i.e biometric and iris scan are also welcome developments, as they will help in lowering the cost of these solutions and drive businesses to deploy and implement these devices to meet specific used cases i.e cash outs, remittances, etc."

Source : Equity Bulls

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