India: Four –fold increase in use of e-payments

India’s nascent electronic payment market shows signs of explosive first-stage growth, making the country an excellent prospect for growth in e-remittances. Coinstar CEO Mohit Davar often stresses that the country’s third world status makes the ‘last mile’ delivery of money transfers complicated, since there are severe infrastructure hurdles to overcome. The Reserve Bank of India reports that the total value of e-payments showed an almost four-fold growth to over $250 billion at the end of March 2008, up from $58.75 billion in March 2007. Rural and urban figures were not available separately, but it is expected that most of the growth is in the urban segment.