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How does that leave citizens worse off? Removing charges from payment makes that comission go to citizens, small businesses and away from the pocket of big corp

How does that leave citizens worse off? Removing charges from payment makes that comission go to citizens, small businesses and away from the pocket of big corporations. The fact that big business can't make money by charging for payment is not worrying. If the credit offering are not good for citizens, regulations will fix that. Government shouldn't allow everything in the fear that big business will do something even worse.

dmix 6y ago
Of course the citizens will like that its "free" but that doesn't make the costs of operating the financial networks also suddenly free. Nor is it guaranteed the loans will be feasible enough business to cover expenses for the primary financial networks... Let alone covering any sort of customer service, help fighting fraud and theft, or to invest in expansion to new markets, or improving their software products, cover their own banking fees and insurance risks, pay their workers a decent salary, etc, etc. The government basically limited access to a potentially massive marketplace that would do wonders for the wider economy, increasing efficacy and benefiting local business (India's economy is terribly inefficient and littered with rules that change every region), and instead of charging for the actual service they are providing they will be forced to push a bunch of debt onto the communities that they don't need (or some other shady monetization strategy like selling data and advertisements or other stuff that may even hurt the original business). This will also likely further limit the market to a monopoly as it requires massive scale to get the <1% who might have loans, so they can get good enough deals with the banks to lower their own fees to have survivable margins. On top of the main business expenses. Monopolies are famous for being extremely anti-consumer but still surviving with little competition because they are the only ones big enough to navigate the countless legal, regulatory, and technical hoops required. Destroying the most basic business model... Even before the companies get off the ground (article says the gov still only granted access to a million customers) sounds like a terrible idea. Who knows how much the fees could have declined from competition alone? Or whether anyone will even continue investing in it if no model exists. Just saying the government can write even more rules around the debt will make all problems go away is very naive. Unless your end game is gambling all the pieces will come together before it all crashes or the government running it themselves and/or let taxpayers cover the losses?
- enitihas 6y ago
  Every single bank in India offers the exact same free payment service (UPI based, which these big co apps are also using, identical in functionality), and that is free just like other bank based free payments. So even if all the bigcos leave India payment market, it won't make any difference at all. >and instead of charging for the actual service they are providing they will be forced to push a bunch of debt onto the communities that they don't need This is an absolutely ridiculous argument. Your argument boils down to "Government shouldn't stop bigco from doing anything bad, as then they will be forced to do even more shadier stuff". >Destroying the most basic business model... Even before the companies get off the ground (article says the gov still only granted access to a million customers) sounds like a terrible idea. This argument is wrong. First of all, WhatsApp was not granted access to all customers because they said they weren't ready to interoperate with others, i.e, whatsapp users couldn't pay google pay users. A fundamental requirement of UPI is interoperability, so regardless of which app you use, you can pay anyone on any app. This can be avoided if you are in testing stage, like WhatsApp was, but then your acesss is not to all customers. > Who knows how much the fees could have declined from competition alone? Or whether anyone will even continue investing in it if no model exists. The fees are zero via any bank app. I don't see how a bigco can ever offer lower fees than the providing bank.

dmix 6y ago

Of course the citizens will like that its "free" but that doesn't make the costs of operating the financial networks also suddenly free. Nor is it guaranteed the loans will be feasible enough business to cover expenses for the primary financial networks... Let alone covering any sort of customer service, help fighting fraud and theft, or to invest in expansion to new markets, or improving their software products, cover their own banking fees and insurance risks, pay their workers a decent salary, etc, etc. The government basically limited access to a potentially massive marketplace that would do wonders for the wider economy, increasing efficacy and benefiting local business (India's economy is terribly inefficient and littered with rules that change every region), and instead of charging for the actual service they are providing they will be forced to push a bunch of debt onto the communities that they don't need (or some other shady monetization strategy like selling data and advertisements or other stuff that may even hurt the original business). This will also likely further limit the market to a monopoly as it requires massive scale to get the <1% who might have loans, so they can get good enough deals with the banks to lower their own fees to have survivable margins. On top of the main business expenses. Monopolies are famous for being extremely anti-consumer but still surviving with little competition because they are the only ones big enough to navigate the countless legal, regulatory, and technical hoops required. Destroying the most basic business model... Even before the companies get off the ground (article says the gov still only granted access to a million customers) sounds like a terrible idea. Who knows how much the fees could have declined from competition alone? Or whether anyone will even continue investing in it if no model exists. Just saying the government can write even more rules around the debt will make all problems go away is very naive. Unless your end game is gambling all the pieces will come together before it all crashes or the government running it themselves and/or let taxpayers cover the losses?

enitihas 6y ago
Every single bank in India offers the exact same free payment service (UPI based, which these big co apps are also using, identical in functionality), and that is free just like other bank based free payments. So even if all the bigcos leave India payment market, it won't make any difference at all. >and instead of charging for the actual service they are providing they will be forced to push a bunch of debt onto the communities that they don't need This is an absolutely ridiculous argument. Your argument boils down to "Government shouldn't stop bigco from doing anything bad, as then they will be forced to do even more shadier stuff". >Destroying the most basic business model... Even before the companies get off the ground (article says the gov still only granted access to a million customers) sounds like a terrible idea. This argument is wrong. First of all, WhatsApp was not granted access to all customers because they said they weren't ready to interoperate with others, i.e, whatsapp users couldn't pay google pay users. A fundamental requirement of UPI is interoperability, so regardless of which app you use, you can pay anyone on any app. This can be avoided if you are in testing stage, like WhatsApp was, but then your acesss is not to all customers. > Who knows how much the fees could have declined from competition alone? Or whether anyone will even continue investing in it if no model exists. The fees are zero via any bank app. I don't see how a bigco can ever offer lower fees than the providing bank.