Niti Aayog's Amitabh Kant says ATM cards to be redundant by 2020

Amitabh Kant says ATM cards too will redundant by 2020 as India tries to leapfrog the payments revolution by going fully digital. Speaking at the Pravasi Divas in Bengaluru, the Niti Aayog CEO said "India is in the midst of huge huge disruption in the world of both financial technology and in terms of social innovation (there is) huge huge innovation and this disruption will enable India to leapfrog."

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As part of his speech he shared a vision for digital payments future. "Every Indian will be doing his transaction just by using his thumb in thirty seconds...What we are pushing now is digital payment in a very big way and it is a huge disruption with several innovative methods."

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He made special mention of the BHIM app saying "India has created a back end in terms of biometric which will enable India." Kant focussed on the need to include more Indians in the taxation bracket and shed the cash economy tag.

"It is impossible for India to become a 10 trillion economy like this....two trillion dollar is a formal economy and another one trillion dollar is an informal black economy. It is not possible for India to grow. So you need convert the non-formal economy to a formal economy, thats what the effort is."

Like always, Kant hailed the opportunity the youth offer calling them the biggest economic phenomenon to watch out for. "This is the biggest social and economic phenomenon that is taking place across the world, as the population across Europe and America is getting older, the population in India is getting younger."