Covid-19 curbs cause 30% dip in digital payments

Owing to a sharp slowdown of industries and slower discretionary spends by consumers on dining out and movies, virtual payments sector is estimated to have registered a decline of around 30% in transaction value over the past few weeks.

Covid-19 outbreak has taken a toll on numerous industries across the board such as air travel, hospitality and retail. For example, in the travel sector – which accounts for over 25% of all online spends – digital payments have slipped by nearly 35% to 40%, according to Razorpay, an online payment solutions provider and CCAvenue , a payment gateway platform. There has also been a 35% slump in the demand for new tickets according to Vishwas Patel, CEO, CCAvenues. Traditionally, the period between March to May attract the highest travel-related spending by Indian consumers. This could change this year according to industry insiders.

 “As Indian consumers start to limit their physical footprint in stores, it is too early to assess the actual impact on the offline transactions across all merchant categories,” opined Kush Mehra, chief business officer of Pine Labs, a Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals player.