Digitisation Creates Foundation For Democratisation: COO NPCI

Digitisation has transformed access to knowledge and resources, enabling individuals and communities all around the world. This digital transformation has prepared the way for the democratisation of knowledge, opportunity, and participation, levelling the playing field and encouraging inclusivity in a variety of areas ranging from education and healthcare to governance and entrepreneurship.

Speaking at the 3rd edition of BW Businessworld Festival of Fintech 2023, Praveena Rai , COO, NPCI, said, “Digitisation is really about creating the foundation, creating the fundamentals, creating the frameworks whereas democratisation is really what one can do with it.” She further explained that at the most basic level, the blend could be described as when you have documents and you electronify, scan, or digitise them, which is simple digitisation. 

Rai also spoke about the pre-native digital era, where emails came as a tool of digitisation for communication but it was not democratised until it became free for the users. When users started to have access to emails, that’s when democratisation started taking place. She also gave an example of how cheque clearing is digitisation wherein UPI payments are an output of democratisation. She thoughtfully stated, “Digitisation is on the supply side and democratisation is what happens on the demand side.”

Digitisation offers a uniform framework by defining product standards and protocols, whereas democratisation encourages the development of varied services based on it, allowing for unique solutions customised to specific client needs. 

The next lens centred on technology, and the foundation framework is about availability. When it comes to digitised services, they just have to be there when you need them, and in the payment sector, this is referred to as the success rate. It increases the customer's trust. After the ChatGPT world, it is all about AI and algorithms. Rai also touched upon the evolution in the world of digitisation and the change the world faces.  

On the concluding note, Rai stated, “Differentiation, creation of economic value and making it matter to the customer is going to be very important in the coming future for everything to move from digitisation to democratisation.”