Contactless payments growing strongly in Sri Lanka, says Visa 
Sri Lankan consumers have embraced contactless payments since their deployment began in September 2016, according to Visa Group country manager for India and south Asia, TR Ramachandran. He said the company expects to have 30% of terminals enabled for contactless payment by the end of the year, and said the ease with which the system had been adopted would speed up the Sri Lankan government's drive towards creating a cashless society.

Contactless payments are rapidly growing in popularity across the world and in Sri Lanka too this segment is showing growth, said Visa Group Country Manager for India and South Asia, T.R. Ramachandran.

Speaking to Daily News Business, he said that in Sri Lanka, contactless payments only began rolling out in September 2016 and so far growth numbers across the first 12 months are growing rapidly.

“Visa has already begun deploying contactless payment technology in Sri Lanka and expects to have 30% of the total number of terminals contactless enabled by the end of 2017.”

“The creative disruption brought about by digitalization of point-of-sales, tokenisation of transaction gateways and diversification of IoT-enabled payments will revolutionize the everyday buying and selling in Sri Lanka,” Ramachandran said. He said that Visa will continue to expand contactless payment acceptance and facilitate new ways to pay and be paid for everyone, everywhere. “The swift adaptation by Sri Lankans to contactless payments will also help to speed up governments drive towards creating a cashless society.”

Contactless payments are designed to replace the use of cash in busy retail environments where speed and convenience are important, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, petrol stations and quick-service restaurants. He said that in India too this there has been a significant increase in digital payments penetration post demonetization. “In the overall context, we look at what is known as personal consumption expenditure (PCE). The current penetration of digital payments of these expenditures is around 7 to 9%.”

“We are seeing a shift towards digital payments, quite dramatically, particularly in non-discretionary categories such as fuel and groceries, not only from metros and urban areas but also from tier II and tier III markets. Consumers are slowly but steadily embracing digital payments.”

“It’s fair to say that post demonetization, India has perhaps leapfrogged three to four years and achieved what otherwise could have happened in 2020.” In comparison with China, where 45% of China is already digitized, only 8% of India is digitized, which presents a huge potential to grow, Ramachandran said. Singapore is embracing contactless technology, with around one in every four transactions being made through this channel.

“Hence India represents perhaps the single largest cash displacement opportunity in the planet.”

Nearly 20-25 billion devices across the world by 2020 in some form of fashion will be connected and will be smart devices. India and Sri Lanka are countries where there is a level playing field with a domestic scheme and international schemes.

The size of the challenge and the opportunity in India is too large for one player to take on itself, whether it is Visa, RuPay, MasterCard, or any other firm.