Rs 25,000 crore of cash moved to digital since Nov 8: SBI

Since November 8, nearly Rs 25,000 crore of cash based transaction has moved to digital, a survey found. 

State Bank of India in its Ecowrap report said that they had conducted a survey between December 30, 2016 and January 3, 2017 in Mumbai and Pune, to understand the nuances of demonetisation. 

"A total of 175 responses were recorded and analyzed, of which 40% respondents were from premier business locations of Mumbai and remaining 60% were from Pune and nearby areas," report said. 

According to the survey, around 41% sellers already had point of sale (PoS) machines available even before the ban of high denomination currency but their usage has seen an increase only post demonetisation. 

Moreover, 15% moved to electronic payments, viz. m-wallets, PoS in the ensuing weeks, which means that Rs 25,000 crore of cash has been moved to digital, the report said. 

Adding to it, the report said that this number could have been even higher because the behavioral shift has not happened yet and many merchants still prefer cash transactions when the transaction amount is not large.

Sector-wise, the survey revealed that 69% of the respondents did affirm that their business has been impacted by the government's move. They also believed that the supply of only Rs 2000 denomination notes without intervening notes of Rs 500 has resulted in more chaos. 

"Overall the decline in business is less than 50% for the majority of the businesses that were impacted. The construction sector and the informal road-side vendors seem to be the most hit with 55% and 71% respondents saying that the business got reduced by more than 50%", the report said. 

Other sectors like textile, wholesale segment, gems and jewellery sector were also hit with the declining sales, the report added.