COVID-19 - Digital Transformation and Digital Competency

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused serious and long-term disturbances in people's lives all over the world, in both developing and developed countries. This has led to financial crisis and great depression in the GDPs of many countries. It has not only impacted the Multi-National Businesses (MNCs) but also disturbed the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and life’s of man vulnerable people. As the crisis continues, the pandemic's pervasive impacts, which have affected every part of our communities, continue to unfold, leaving profound marks on people's livelihoods and countries' economies that are likely to persist for several years after the pandemic has ended. As part of the global response to COVID-19, the digital technology industry especially Fintech (Financial Technology) has been instrumental in creating and delivering services and technologies that have mitigated, at least in part, the pandemic's effect on multiple aspects of people's lives in every part of the world. The Fintech companies and Start-ups have played a tremendous role in mitigating the inconvenience for the common people by implementing the next generation solutions for everyone and the people were quick to adopt to such a change. The interest and surge of usage of Fintech applications (Digital applications related to Finance/Payments/Banking/Ecommerce) carries in preserving people’s livelihoods and businesses that have been, and continue to be, threatened by the pandemic COVID-19. This working paper will discuss about the impact of digital payments in the developing country like India during COVID-19, Pre-COVID-19, evolution of digital transformation in India from the past few years, People adoption to digital technologies, digital literacy intensification in emerging markets and also discusses the future trends of Fintech and its impact on consumers and businesses even after the pandemic ends.