FICCI Joins the Global Call to Action for Financial Equality by Committing to Responsible Digitization of Women Merchants with Govt of India

Mar 08, 2021

NEW DELHI, 08 March 2021: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) commits to the Government of India's 'Digital India' and 'AatmaNirbhar Bharat' vision and joins UN-based Better Than Cash Alliance's and partners' Global Call to Action for Financial Equality by focusing on responsible digitization of women merchants to create more equity and economic opportunities.

The announcement comes on the heels of the first-ever Merchant Digitization Summit 2021, organized by the Government of India, FICCI, and Better Than Cash Alliance to focus efforts in the Himalayan, North East regions, and 100+ Aspirational districts and put a spotlight on women merchants.

Merchants are the backbone of 'Digital India'. Often run as a family micro and small enterprises, merchants provide essential services to 1.3 billion people, especially at the last mile. There are close to 10 million organized retailers and about 500,000 distributors in India. Yet less than 2% have been digitized. The unorganized retail segments represent close to 92% of total retail sector and largely uses cash. There are ~7-8 million women merchants in India.

"Mobile phone ownership and use provides life-changing benefits to women, their families, communities, and the economy. We will work with our industry members to close the gender gap in this area, so women merchants can benefit from e-commerce and digital payments opportunities," said Mr Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General, FICCI.

He further added that FICCI along with FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) is running a 'FICCI - FLO Empowering Greater 50%' programme which lays a special emphasis on enhancing entrepreneurial and decision-making skills of women. "Digital inclusion is one of the key pillars of this initiative we commit to expand digital inclusion footprint for women entrepreneurs across India through this endeavor," added Mr Chenoy.

FICCI also commits to advocate with its members to collect gender-disaggregated data and facilitate dialogue on privacy, consent, and consumer protection to ensure that the digitization that ensues is not just inclusive, but also responsible.

The most recent announcement of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are the operational guidelines for INR 345 crore Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) aimed at building digital payments infrastructure in tier-3 to tier-6 cities, with a special focus on the North-eastern states.

"At the Merchant Digitization Summit, all key stakeholders acknowledged the need to lead the development of the next generation apps and solutions with the private sector that will provide a UPI/Aadhaar equivalent protocol for large-scale merchant digitization. We applaud FICCI's commitment to help millions of women merchants join the formal economy, access credit, and grow their business," said Ms Keyzom Ngodup Massally, Head of Asia-Pacific, Better Than Cash Alliance.

Today, on the occasion of the International Women's Day, the Better Than Cash Alliance and partners have launched a Global Call to Action for Financial Equality, laying out a 10-point action plan for governments and businesses to rebuild stronger after COVID-19. Collecting gender-disaggregated data to make better decisions, creating strong customer protection and dispute mechanisms, hiring more women in the finance and telecom sectors, are essential to driving women's digital financial inclusion.