to alter financial status’ - a powerful reference to the ‘meanings’ users infuse their economic

transactions in everyday life [ 1]. The paper proposes to study and explain everyday practices

and implications of the digital wallet, PayTM, in urban India as an instrument of financial

inclusion. We attempt to probe two broad questions that set the context for the rest of the

paper 1. Can digital forms of money represent the ‘next stage’ in the evolution of money to

create financial inclusion; 2. Can digital platforms be viewed as optimising and amplifying

user capacity to transact with money? We engage with the above questions to interrogate the

following: First, is digital money in India expanding technology literacy? Second, does digital

money support micro-entrepreneurship in the context of street business prevalent in India? By

virtue of the above two questions we ask a third; is digital money an instrument of financial

million wallet users in the first two years of its introduction. With 150 million users on the

platform, PayTM has become synonymous to e-wallet and added five million new users, 62.9

million transactions and registered over seven million transactions worth INR 1.2 billion every

day in June 2018 [2]. These numbers exclude approximately a billion and 150 million Indians

from the e-wallet platform. The challenges faced by PayTM and its acceptance from the

banked and unbanked segments are both a broader issue of shifting gears from a traditional

transactional system and a more immersive one of gaining technical and financial literacy.

While PayTM is predominantly a part of the digital wallet universe, a recent study [3] situates

digital payments ‘within a larger undertaking of technology-driven modernity that drives these

initiatives, rather than just efficiency or productivity gains...’. What does it take to cast PayTM

provide steady low-cost savings; and for the state to channelize funds and reduce poverty

[4].New practices in the domain of financial inclusion invite new powerful players and

practices to intermediate the lives and fortunes of the poor. While MFIs, community-based

programmes and cooperative institutions are the gold standards for financial inclusion, actors

like payday lenders, large banks, technology firms, mobile network operators and credit card

companies are now ‘included’ as agents of financial inclusion. The latter blurs the lines

between different types of service providers and practices in the domain of financial inclusion

to create an ‘enabling’ environment for new technologies’ [5]. The Indian government, since

2014, has emerged as the organ of financial inclusion for the country, with its ‘largest

financial inclusion scheme in the world’ [Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana] for universal bank

to identify processes promoting ‘financial inclusion’ and modes of acquiring ‘literacies’ in

order to participate in the processes of ‘financial inclusion’. In this paper, the context of street

vending offers a backdrop to map the journey of PayTM as an instrument of financial

inclusion and the challenges in acquiring digital literacies as part of business practice.

In this section, we offer an understanding of financial inclusion around digital wallets and

payment platforms while situating digital money in the ongoing discussion on financial

inclusion. A simple definition of financial exclusion is the inability to access necessary

financial services in an appropriate form [7]. Financial institutions are seen as a ‘coalition of

depositors’ [8] providing a diversity of services to low income and subsisting populations in

investments [9-11]. Only 35% of the adults in India have access to an account at a formal

financial institution [12]. Major financial inclusion policies follow a supply side-centered

approach providing access to basic banking services such as a ‘no-frills’ savings account [13].

However, when bank accounts remain largely under-used and informal money management

persists, it is necessary to consider people’s constraints and rationales that go beyond

behavioural constraints [13]. A major critique of financial inclusion strategies is the inability

to address financial arrangements in interconnected socio-cultural contexts including the

household, the larger village or town, the banking systems and infrastructures of financial

access [14]. A range of research studies suggests mobile money services as a subset of ‘what

will eventually be an extremely diverse ecosystem of mobile technology-based offerings,

The rapid penetration of mobile phones and the growing popularity of smartphones in the

developing nations have created tremendous opportunities and severe challenges for

conventional payment systems dominated by traditional banking and financial institutions [21-

24]. India is home to more than 145 million unbanked families, a potential segment for

financial inclusion via mobile phones [25]. Mobile banking and digital wallet technologies are

the new locus expanding financial capacities by reducing costs of transaction making

payments electronically transferrable and a variety of small transactions cheaper, easier and

faster for service providers and customers [26-29]. But how expansive and deep are these

lack of skills and knowledge to make informed financial choices impacting low-income

earners adversely in understanding the implications of their choices and actions’. Bawden [33]

and Eshet-Alkalai [34] caution about the inconsistency between those who conceive digital

literacy as ‘primarily concerned with technical skills and those who see it as focused on

understood as a shorthand for the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing’ [37]

and ‘a set of socially organized practices which make use of a symbol system and a

technology for producing and disseminating it’, which in other words means “applying

knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use’ [38].

PayTM as a digital wallet and agent of financial inclusion is claiming a phenomenal increase

in adoption of digital payments in tier two and three cities of India constituting 50% of the

transactions through its smartphone app and QR code solution. The platform is powering the

largest offline payments network with over 8 million offline merchant partners who accept

payments via the PayTM QR [40]. While millennials continue to be the most active users, the

platform surged with an annual run rate of 5 billion transactions and 50 billion USD GTV

(Gross Transaction Value) [40]. PayTM claims to be the largest contributor towards all forms

of digital payments including UPI, Wallet and Cards and, since January 2018, processed over

400 million digital transactions, a preferred alternative to net banking. It also saw a 500%

growth [40] in money transfer transactions with offline stores accepting PayTM payments

directly into their bank accounts. This new feature will accept payments from any bank

account into their bank accounts at zero transaction charges [41]. Much of our paper engages

In this section we specifically draw attention to studies that highlight the intersections of

digital money and their social contexts. Digital currencies and payment technologies not only

offer new ways of interacting with money but also transform user’s understanding of financial

digital and physical forms of money while forms of currency can make the invisible visible,

exposing identities and values as much as business models and transaction details’[44]. The

adoption of digital money is shot through with cultural and social factors that constitute its

specific character; one such example are ‘the Japanese conceptions of the aesthetic and moral

virtue of smooth flow and avoidance of commotion’ impinging on not only the design but also

user adoption of digital money. Implications for design of mobile payment systems stress the

need to ‘produce open-ended platforms that can serve as the vehicle for multiple meanings and

experiences without foreclosing such possibilities in the name of efficiency’ [45]. Another

study reports on a specific digitally mediated transaction system (transactions are mediated by

a third phone transferring money from one account to another through a SMS notification

and adopt PayTM adjusting and expanding their understanding of ‘money’ as de-materialised

digital currency.

business transactions to uncover the socio-economic factors behind the usage of PayTM. We

carried out fieldwork in five markets in two regions of the country: the national capital region

of Delhi (NCR), situated in North India and Greater Hyderabad, a metropolis and major

technology hub in South India. The markets were Lajpat Nagar, a popular market with plenty

of street-side vendors in South Delhi witnessing a footfall of about 100,000 people a day and

150,000 on weekends. Many of the shops sell women’s clothes, shoes, apparels tending

towards a female-dominated customer base. PayTM usage here is not widespread but

definitely on the rise with cash being the predominant mode of payment. The second market in

South Delhi, Nehru Place market, is a more male-centric shopping area in an office district. It

is surrounded by offices, electronics goods shops, a few eateries, and frequented by office

restricted to transactions valued not more than INR 1,000 [12 USD] - a sort of reverse

mandate that was found in the Nehru Place market. We will dwell on the reasons for these

mandates in our findings section. We studied two markets in Hyderabad city: DLF Street,

located in the IT districts of Hyderabad hosting offices of giant tech companies opens at 4 PM

and shuts shop at 2 AM. Many snack stalls cover a mile-long stretch of the roadside. The

customers for these stalls are predominantly IT employees in ‘the graveyard shift’ and students

but its partnership with Uber and the ability to extend use for the shopkeeper's personal

everyday behaviour with money. According to Sri Teja, a mobile street vendor selling Pani

Puri, a popular savoury in the IT suburb of Hyderabad, “Even a penny can be transferred

through the wallet. Digital money is small cash.” PayTM acquires new meanings consistent

with and interpreted through existing notions of ‘money’ which in turn become drivers or

constraints in the adoption of digital money.

jewellery at throwaway prices share their business profits. One of them a young man named

Rajat, currently performs only micro-transactions through his PayTM account but seemed

enthusiastic about the entire concept of mobile wallets. Rajat shares this account with the four

vendors around him. His product and price range result in small transactions, several through

the ease of PayTM, and the proximity of co-vendors who he can trust has resulted in an

organizational arrangement that optimizes their small business turnover without compromising

on the benefits a digital wallet brings with it. “We pay each other cash to settle our account

based on the PayTM records. That is one good thing with PayTM. There is a record of

transactions.”

Anand [male, 59] a small vendor in the Nehru Place market, selling files and folders along with

buying over 100 INR [ <2 US$] worth of products in order to transact with PayTM. One of the

authors had to buy a products worth around 100 INR to be able to pay using her PayTM wallet.

In Lajpat Nagar, a lot of street vendors function in groups of three or four and share a PayTM

account. Jatin owns an open stall in Nehru Place, that sells men’s clothes using a couple of

helpers. Jatin has two PayTM accounts and a self-confessed PayTM ‘fan’; “I want notes to be

banned and everyone should be made to switch to cashless transactions. It would also affect my

sales because not everyone roams around with cash. A lot of people generally carry cards with

them however, all places including my own stall, do not accept cards.” He claims that there’s

been a huge increase in sales with around Rs. 2000 [25 USD] as PayTM money each day and

for micro-transactions like TV recharge, mobile phone recharge, small transactions for the

household; “The system of mobile wallets is really great and useful. As long as people have

PayTM on their phones, they won’t feel handicapped, be it in the marketplace, bus tickets, local

train tickets, PayTM can be used anywhere. There is a sense of security that you have access to

money all the time.” Move 50 miles outside of a big city you find a different approach to digital

platforms. Murthal, a location on the outskirts of South Delhi, is strategic for small eateries to

serve people passing by to stop for meals. Sukhbir, 28, a waiter in the Tavva Rasoi Dhaba,

Murthal, Haryana, said, “Everyone has a PayTM account here but how it's being used is known

only by vendors like us.” To people like Sukhbir, PayTM like services seem to be an additional

option to pay but does not affect sales per se. Interestingly the nature of context affects digital

drivers who pass through or people from nearby are not typical PayTM users and usually go for

cash (many do not have a Smartphone) whereas traders and people on an excursion opted for

other payment techniques like PayTM and cards. Jagad, who sells ‘paan’, a digestive and mouth