To accelerate the movement towards a DIGITAL PAYMENT
ECONOMY ( or a LESS CASH economy ) ,
the committee of Chief Ministers set up for this purpose , is convinced that we
need to increase the number of smart phones in use , from current 200 million
to , may be 700
million
All pre-installed with AEPS
( Aadhar
Enabled Payment Service ) mobile app , which the NDA
government plans to launch in next 15 days
AEPS will be linked with Biometric identification / Aadhar number / Jan Dhan bank a/c
number of the user
{ http://myblogepage.blogspot.in/2016/11/how-to-go-cash-less.html }
It was reported that the Committee debated various
methods of putting these additional 500 million smart phones in the hands of the
users , including the option of NDA government " buying " these
directly from manufacturers and then selling to public at subsidized rates
Even at a modest price of Rs 1000 per phone , that
would cost Rs 500 Billion -
which the government does not have
And the disaster of Aakash Tablets is still haunting us
!
WHAT ARE
THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
?
I am talking of solutions that do NOT require the
government to foot the bill of buying 500 million phones
ONE OF
THE SOLUTION :
Using Smart phone as a Service ( instead of " Smart phone as a
Product " )
With the arrival of UBER / OLA , cars are changing
from " products
owned by individuals ",
to " transport service enjoyed by hundreds without owning
"
All over the World , car manufacturers are worried at
this disruption , where less and less people would want to " own " a car and would rather call for a taxi
through a mobile app
It is proving to be much cheaper ( than owning /
maintaining ) and more convenient !
So the car manufacturers are asking of themselves :
* Shall we
become a transport
service provider , rather than a car manufacturer ?
* Rather than
" sell " a car for a one-time income of Rs 10 lakh , should we sell
taxi-service
worth , a recurring income
of Rs 1 lakh per month for 24 months ?
As a first step , we have recently witnessed leading
car manufacturers all over the World , tying up
with mobile app based taxi services
And do not be surprised if , in the next 2 years , you see
taxi service providers getting cars manufactured in their OWN BRAND NAME ! And
Mahindra & Mahindra , willing to do that !
There is no reason why this new BUSINESS MODEL , cannot
work for smart phones
We have following options :
* Smart phone
manufacturers becoming " Mobile Service
Providers - MSP " themselves
* Mobile Service
Providers getting phones made by manufacturers and " bundling " with
their
services ( - although , I believe , this is not currently permitted in India )
* Mobile Wallet
Service providers ( Paytm / Mobiquick / FreeCharge
etc ) , providing the
phones to
their subscribers , free of cost
or at a highly subsidized rates
* NDA government
entering into a " Revenue Share
Agreement " with any of these ( Phone
Manufacturers
/ MSPs / Mobile Wallet companies / Banks etc ) , who are willing to ,
# Get SARAL phones made , duly pre-installed with
AEPS and give away to users FREE
# Earn from the Government , 1 % of the
" Payment
Transaction Amount " as their
revenue
share , whenever the user buys any goods / service , using SARAL ( for
the
Government
, this will work as a kind of " subsidizing through deferred payment "
)
But let us go back to the earlier example of cars ( Individual
Ownership vs Collective
Usership , ala Uber / OLA )
Why do people need to " OWN " a phone ( AEPS
pre-installed ), in order to be able to " USE " it ?
People who make their purchase payments using Credit / Debit
cards , do NOT own their personal PoS machines / Card Readers !
The SELLER owns those machines , kept on his counter
And allows the BUYERS to use these while making payment
With AEPS duly " integrated " with
Aadhar-based BIO-METRIC device , linked to
user's bank account , there is no technical reason
, why a BUYER
cannot use an AEPS
installed phone , lying on the counter of the SELLER !
When he is carrying his EYES - and his Aadhar Card
- there is no need for him to " OWN / CARRY " his own EYE - READER
( smart phone ) , wherever he goes !
Just look into the camera of the SARAL phone
lying on the sales counter , speak your Aadhar Number , then speak payment
instruction ! As SARAL ( simple ) as
that, until smart phones start reading your unspoken thoughts !
And putting a 100 million SARAL phones
( pre-installed with AEPS ) , into
the hands of SELLERS , is much easier / faster /
cheaper than placing 500 million phones into
the hands of USERS !
With this innovation ( shrinking
and morphing a bulky PoS / Card Reading Device to a tiny SARAL phone
, pre-installed with AEPS ) , there is an
opportunity for manufacturers of these devices to " re-invent "
themselves !
Now is the time to make themselves
obsolete , before someone else does !
If they don't , they are cooked !
And , since Credit / Debit
card Issuers too are on the verge of " going
into oblivion " , they would be happy to tie-up with PoS / Card Reader
manufacturers , to implement my suggestion
They can still survive , if they ensure that those MORPHED / SHRUNK
devices ( called SARAL phones ) , enable millions of illiterate Indians to make
their payments , just by " talking to the
phone ( lying on the SELLER's counter ) " , in a language of their choice !
If they succeed in pulling off this innovation ( of spoken
instructions ) , they have a good chance to beat existing Mobile Wallet
companies
Dear
Shri Amitabh Kant :
If asked , Sundar Pichai ( Google ) would gladly
combine " Google
Talk " with " Google Translate " , to come up with a " SARAL " app which can be
integrated into AEPS !
This SARAL avatar of a Smart phone , has tremendous scope
for export all over the World .
I hope , the Members of the Chief Ministers Committee ,
find time to debate my suggestions
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03 Dec 2016
www.hemenparekh.in / blogs
No comments:
Post a Comment