What is one relatively unknown thing that your country does much better than elsewhere, but that most people don't know about?
What is one relatively unknown thing that your country does much better than elsewhere, but that most people don't know about?
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India: what India does wayyy better than others is digital payments. we have what is called UPI this is a open payments interface made by government (rbi) but their APIs can be used by any bank's and any verified third party apps, and all you need to use UPI is just a bank account that's it, and with this we can send money to any bank account through any other bank account with just phone number or QR code, the reciver and sender don't even have to use same app because the backend is same for all, i just have to search for their number and send money, or i just have to scan QR code and send money, and it happens instantly with no minimum limit, this is so widely used that pretty much any shopkeeper keeps a UPI qr code even the ones in smallest and remote villages. infact i dony think I used single rupee in cash since like last 3 years, i don't carry cash anywhere either, this is integrated with popular apps too like uber online food ordering apps , Netflix and basically any app that needs payment. upi is pretty much only reason why India has the most digital transaction in world even more than China and it's not even close.
also public digital infrastructure, pretty much anything government related is done digitally, like our id cards, driving licence, income certificate, and even high school and degree certificate is digitised, infact even our college credits is digitised, like my college credits will be automatically added so it will be seamless to change college in between my degree, and ofc all this is verified cryptographically with an app, so it's not just one pdf which can be forged or something. and recently a law was passed which made the cryptographically verified digital documents legally same thing as physical one's, so now if you have a phone with the app installed ( government made app that store's and verifies documents) and if you have all your documents in that app you are good to go anywhere. this is more than just concinence of not having to carry physical documents because now we can make bank accounts completely online because verification can be done through their APIs and cryptographically. and yeah it was super useful in covid times because we could do appointment for vaccination online in the app and we could get covid certificate digitally.
India has the BRO too.
Watching a guy called Joe Ryan on Youtube at the mo, who's riding a motorbike around the Himalayas. The BRO are building roads there at an incredible rate in the most impossible landscape. I'm genuinely amazed at the scale and adaptability of them and how much they're doing right now.
This is literally changing the lives of those who live in the area, although I do wonder how much this will trigger tourism and change everything as it has elsewhere. But still, those guys can build roads.
I think you should also highlight how it is different from China's Alipay or similar payment vendor system in Europe and the US - it is a unified payment system, there is little to no fee for transaction, and you're not locked to a eco-system, like Apple, or PayPal. But it is absolutely horrible when it comes to privacy.
Can you expand on why UPI is horrible when it comes to privacy when compared to the other options you have mentioned?
I would not be doing any sort of digital transactions if I am worried about privacy as I don’t think one is better than the other in this matter. It would be naive to think so otherwise.
IFF has written multiple articles about this, not just articles, but also forums.
Forum discussions
UPI - why are full names a part of the response?
Recommendations on banking services
Articles
True (caller) or False (caller)? We ask NPCI to answer this question.
What has the NPCI found on the TrueCaller security breach? We write to them asking just that.
There are also research papers with respect to UPI, but I'll not be linking that here.
I have gone through the links, and I still cannot find the answer to my question on what makes UPI "absolutely horrible when it comes to privacy" when compared to the other options in your original comment.
I still maintain that all practical means of digital transactions are inherently poor for privacy, regardless of the channel/medium. One is not less private than the other.
Of course, mediums like cryptocurrency exists which "promise" privacy while transacting. But they are not practical in India, and also do not operate at the scale of the options we are discussing about.
Also, I really appreciate responding back with links, but a line directly answering my question would have saved some time, especially since the links you shared are irrelevant to our discussion. None of the links actually do a comparison of the options or even state that one is outright better than the other. If anything, some of the comments in the linked forum posts only echo what I am saying about the lack of privacy across all digital transactions.
Not the best write-up, but I've written a round sketch of what I wanted to explain about:
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Data collection: UPI collects a lot of data about the user, for example, transaction history, phone number, payment address, IFSC, virtual ID and even location data.
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Data sharing: Agreements with other countries by NCPI to facilitate cross-border sharing means that there is more attack surface for data leaks. Ignoring that, even by current standards, there is data sharing between third-parties like service providers, banks and government (NCPI), allowing for misuse of data, as well as breaches. UPI breaches have happened before already, this isn't something new, for example, BharatPay and PhonePe's transaction breaches
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Lack of transparency: There is no transparency on UPI - how it works, how the data is handled, and what security measures have been taken. There is a centralized governmental organization, all the transactions go through their unified system, and there's nothing else - not even an open-source repository to add to the confidence of ensuring privacy. There are no policies or laws dictating how our data will be handled.
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Surveillance: There's multiple reports about surveillance tech in India by organizations like Amnesty and AccessNow, then there was the Pegasus scandal. There are multiple mass-surveillance programs in India, including the Aadhar biometrics and the DRDO Netra. CCTV cameras are all across in major cities. If that is not already enough, there's a unified system with no transparency - there is stopping the government from surveillance, when it can already collect so much from the user.
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But it is absolutely horrible when it comes to privacy.
Reading OPs description, I did wonder.
it is indeed horrible, I'm pretty sure one of the biggest motivation to push for digital transactions was to track easily and tax easily
the difference is this is unified and government maintained, alipay or any payment vendor's you have to use their apps, and you can only send money to people who have accounts in their apps, here it's maintained by government no need to make any account anywhere, just direct bank to bank transfer with just phone number and QR code. and more importantly no transaction fees
I'm curious, how does that work for people from remote villages? India still have a pretty large population who live traditional lifestyles with limited access to the Internet, don't y'all? Do they have the option of more traditional paper documents, or do they have to find a computer somewhere to use for certain things?
UPI also works with USSD, so it is actually not limited by just internet.
even people from less developed places use digital stuff, you don't need computer you only need a phone to use everything, mobile data is super cheap in india (3usd per month for 2gb per day), and smartphones are super cheap too, even people who don't have access to electricity use digital payments. infact this was possible only because of cheap internet and many indians are comfortable with tech somehow. and connectivity is really good pretty much 100% of country get's fast 4g and nearly 80% has 5g
Doesn’t “digital” imply “electricity”?
well that i meant 24/7 electricity
We have QR code based payments in the Netherlands via iDeal. Makes payment super easy.
is it as simple as " download an app and sign in through phone number and bank account is automatically detected and you are good to go" ans also there is no transaction fees
That's way more convoluted than here.
Our banking apps have a QR scanner in them so no need for new apps or new accounts.
banking apps have upi too, even in banking apps you have to sign in with id and password and such with upi specific apps you don't even have to do that, it's just that you have more freedom here, the thing is any app can have it
We use qr-based payments where I live too. I been the qr-codes have to work on all payment platforms which is super convenient.
The only minor gripe is that they charge a small transfer fee if going between banks. Do you have that fee?
there is no fee, the servers and bandwidth cost taken from taxpayers money basically
Wow that's really impressive! I'm used to having a great online platform to transfer money, but having government issued documents be digitized is a step beyond what we have here!