Why does India have lots of digital payment apps but not in a developed country like Germany?*

The premise of this question is deeply flawed.

Many countries do have digital payments apps. India is not even among the first 40 countries in the world to launch digital payments.

Germany had digital payments well before India implemented NEFT and RTGS, let alone IMPS and UPI.

When I opened my first bank account in Germany in circa 1999, the Branch Manager told me that no one used checks in Germany but hinted that, since I came from a third world country, I might not be comfortable with digital payments, and handed me five paper checks.

It so turned out that, when I left Germany in circa 2003, I hadn’t used a single one of those check leaves and returned them to the bank when I closed my account.

At the time:

The leading modes of retail digital payments in Germany were

1. Debit Card
2. Account-to-Account payment / One-off Credit Transfer. Equivalent of NEFT and RTGS, which were launched years later in India
3. Credit Card

The leading modes of corporate digital payments in Germany were

1. One-off credit Transfer. Equivalent of NEFT and RTGS, which were launched years later in India
2. Bulk credit transfer. Equivalent of Bulk NEFT, which was launched years later in India
3. pCard. AFAIK, there’s still no equivalent of this digital payment in India.

At the time, the above digital payments in Germany could be initiated via

• Online banking website
• Paper credit transfer advice
• Written instructions on company letterhead.

By now,

• The aforementioned bank digital payment apps are also supported on Mobile Banking website / app of leading banks
• Some nonbank Digital Payment apps like Google Pay that are available in India are also available in Germany.
• Some other nonbank Digital Payment apps like Apple Pay that are not supported in India are supported in Germany.

In a $40K per capita income country, people can afford $2000 desktops and laptops whereas in a $3K per capita income country, the majority of Internet access happens via cheap $100 mobile phones. Likewise, in a rich country, the average resident is not going to keep trying out every new digital app just to get cashback worth peanuts.

In keeping with that, there could a greater use of digital payment apps on desktop / laptop in Germany versus mobile phone in India and fewer number of digital payment apps in Germany versus India.

But that does not mean, by any stretch of imagination, that Germany - and other developed countries - do not have digital payments compared to India. To claim otherwise would be demonstrating utter ignorance of what’s happening in the world.

For reference, USA processes as much digital payments in 15 days as India does in a year.

*: This is the original question I answered. I’m repeating it to help me make sense of my answer in case it’s moved to / merged with some other question that I didn’t answer.