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Digital Wallets ‘Turning a Corner’ for Financial Inclusion: A Study of Everyday PayTM Practices in India

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Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D (ICT4D 2019)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 552))

Abstract

Financial transactions are intimately bound with social interactions and woven into everyday economic lives. In this paper we focus on PayTM, a digital wallet, and a specific set of users of PayTM, street vendors in urban India. Through an ethnographic investigation we offer to unpack two questions: 1. Can digital forms of money create financial inclusion by opening up access to the marginalized 2. Can digital platforms amplify socio-economic capacities of low literate users enhancing financial literacy? We argue that digital and financial literacy are an immersive component of digital wallet use acquiring ‘everyday life’ in specific socio-economic ecosystems. Our study captures daily practices of digital money staking a claim in advancing the understanding of financial inclusion as a lived process accumulating habits, practices and stakes to expand socio-economic capabilities.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India

    Tanmay Joshi & Nimmi Rangaswamy

  2. Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, India

    Sharmistha Swasti Gupta

Authors
  1. Tanmay Joshi
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  2. Sharmistha Swasti Gupta
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  3. Nimmi Rangaswamy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nimmi Rangaswamy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Petter Nielsen

  2. University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Honest Christopher Kimaro

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Joshi, T., Gupta, S.S., Rangaswamy, N. (2019). Digital Wallets ‘Turning a Corner’ for Financial Inclusion: A Study of Everyday PayTM Practices in India. In: Nielsen, P., Kimaro, H. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D. ICT4D 2019. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 552. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19115-3_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19115-3_23

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-19114-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-19115-3

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