<p>The Digital India campaign launched on 1st July 2015 with its catchphrase of ‘faceless, paperless, cashless’ lay the foundation of a shift towards a digital economy. Digital payments have subsequently seen two major socio-political temporal influxes with first the demonetization process of 2016 and acute cash crunch, and subsequently the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the necessity for social distancing and contactless payments. These episodes have influenced the digital economy to surge between 2015-16 and 2019-20, digital payment volumes have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 55.1 per cent (Business Standard, 30 May 2023). In spite of this the cash circulation within the economy has come back to its previous levels and have even risen at the ebb of these episodes. This has been augmented with other technological and infrastructural advancements, with a ‘more evolved digital payment ecosystem compared to 25 other countries including the U.K., China and Japan’ (KPMG, 2020) and internet penetration growth of 200% in rural areas and 158% in urban areas between 2015 and 2021 (The Economic Survey 2022-23, MCA).</p> <p>The present paper takes cognizance of the phenomena of digital payments in India using the concepts of ‘political economy of money’ and ‘culture of economy’. Working with the premise that ‘younger population who has grown up with mobiles and data, has enabled faster adoption of technological advancements in digital payments’ (KPMG, 2020), the research is based on in-depth interview of students pursuing their masters at the university level, a social group which is hither to not financially independent, but is technologically friendly and mobile. The work attempts to understand the usage and perception of digital payment through issues of budgeting, ease of usage convenience, demotivators, hedonism, extension of self, responsible behaviour etc, and understands it as a part of the larger world system.</p>
