I mostly shop online. My groceries, my monthly supplies, my clothes, my toiletries, my furniture, my electronics, my impulse buys. It gives me the convenience and choice that physical shopping does not. Like many lakhs of people, I went in to shop for my groceries on the 1^st of the month – as is my normal practise. As I reached the checkout, I found all my cards – debit, and credit – had disappeared. And there was a message about another RBI initiative.

Just a few months earlier, most of my subscriptions online went for a toss, as RBI insisted on two factor authentication for our subscriptions. As the Hindu reported, “According to the new policy, for all recurring payments over ₹5,000 made via debit cards, credit cards, e-wallets, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facility, customers will be asked to verify before the service provider auto-debits cash. For transactions under ₹5,000, consumers have to re-authenticate their standing instructions.” It took me almost 2 months to get back my subscriptions, and in most cases this meant that rather than paying on a monthly basis, I ended up paying the annual fees.

While in both cases the RBI rules were aimed at the security of the customer, in both cases they have ended up inconveniencing most of us. As I pointed out on twitter,

The RBI, to keep us safe, from scamsters and others – has introduced tokenization.   Tokenisation is the process in which your credit or debit card number is replaced by a token. That token is a unique digital identifier of your card – and used in all online/mobile transactions. The reason for this is to prevent your card details from falling into the hands of scamsters or hackers. Also your details are anonymised. As such it is in our interest to have our 16-digit cards tokenised. In principle tokenisation is a great idea. It allows for the consumer’s privacy and security. Ultimately the retailer only transacts with the Token, not with the card.  But, it has happened too fast, and too soon after the previous RBI rule. Most people did not notice, and were caught unawares on the 1^st of October.
And, essentially what happened to me, like millions of others on the 1^st of October, is that the RBI rules to keep us safe, ended up causing a disruption to the way we buy and consume.
Then what is the problem? The problem is the rapidity with which these rules are being introduced. No sooner than you recover from rule number one, you have rule number 2 that you need to contend with. I am fairly certain, that like lakhs of others, there are some subscriptions that would never come back. Similarly, if you were suddenly hit by tokenisation, there are transactions that will never go through to completion.
And, in an economy recovering from COVID, and trying to bounce back, this is not the best time to introduce such rapid levels of changes that impacts the customer journey through to completion. While the government is trying to ensure that digital India, and digital transactions are a success – the RBI actions – however well-intentioned – is pushing us back into a cash transaction zone.  It would have been good if there was some breathing space given, and some time to educate customers about the need for this – rather than having such a rapid transition from one mode of transacting to another.