Digital Payments, Mobile Phones and Platform Economies

Research record

Chapter 125 examines the contemporary economy through the devices, payment rails and software platforms that increasingly coordinate everyday exchange. The smartphone is now simultaneously a telephone, identity token, bank interface, shop counter, map, workplace, classroom, ticket office and remittance terminal. Yet digitalisation is not a clean replacement of older institutions. Cash remains important; assisted banking remains essential; households share devices; mobile networks fail; and small merchants combine QR payments with notebooks and cash boxes. The correct historical frame is therefore a layered economy in which digital systems reduce some transaction costs while creating new dependencies on electricity, connectivity, authentication, software design, data governance and platform rules. The scale of India’s payment transition is unmistakable but should be dated carefully. NPCI’s published monthly series records 22.716 billion UPI transactions worth about ₹28.92 lakh crore in June 2026. The RBI’s Digital Payments Index, with March 2018 = 100, reached 516.76 in September 2025. These are national indicators, not district measures for Mithila, Vajji or Anga. Likewise, TRAI reported 89.56 million internet subscriptions in the Bihar telecom service area at the end of March 2026, but that service area includes Jharkhand. The regional historian must therefore resist converting regulatory geographies into cultural geographies and instead combine national rails, service-area infrastructure and local household/merchant evidence. Across the India–Nepal border, digital integration now has a chronology of its own. Indian UPI users gained QR-based person-to-merchant acceptance at participating Nepalese merchants in 2024. In June 2026, India’s UPI and Nepal’s National Payments Interface were linked for real-time person-to-person remittances through participating institutions. These are distinct systems serving different transaction types. Together they show how the older border economy of family remittances, pilgrimage, shopping and petty trade is acquiring a digital layer without eliminating cash, foreign-exchange rules, bank regulation or informal exchange.

Section index

1. 125.1 The digital layer of the contemporary economy
2. 125.2 Mobile infrastructure and the problem of regional measurement
3. 125.3 Connectivity is not the same as effective access
4. 125.4 The mobile phone as a financial terminal
5. 125.5 UPI and the reorganisation of small payments
6. 125.6 Merchant QR codes and low-cost acceptance
7. 125.7 Cash persistence and the hybrid payment economy
8. 125.8 Assisted digital finance and the last mile
9. 125.9 JEEViKA, Bank Sakhis and women-centred digital finance
10. 125.10 Direct transfers, Aadhaar and cash-out points
11. 125.11 Agriculture, input purchase and farm-side payments
12. 125.12 Micro-enterprise, records and working-capital visibility
13. 125.13 Street vending and digitally visible small commerce
14. 125.14 E-commerce beyond metropolitan India
15. 125.15 Logistics platforms and the new geography of delivery
16. 125.16 Ride-hailing and app-mediated mobility
17. 125.17 Food delivery and the urban service economy
18. 125.18 Home services and mediated trust
19. 125.19 Gig work, platform work and legal recognition
20. 125.20 Social security after the 2025 labour-code commencement
21. 125.21 Algorithms, ratings and income volatility
22. 125.22 Gendered access, device ownership and platform participation
23. 125.23 Language, voice and interface design
24. 125.24 Fraud, impersonation and cyber risk
25. 125.25 Failed payments, reversals and grievance redress
26. 125.26 Nepal’s mobile-banking, wallet and QR ecosystem
27. 125.27 The India–Nepal cross-border payment corridor
28. 125.28 Data governance, privacy and exclusion
29. 125.29 Building an evidence archive for digital economic history
30. 125.30 From digital coordination to destination economies

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “Digital Payments, Mobile Phones and Platform Economies.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/history/social-125/