Bill Gates backs demonetization, says shift to digital payments quickly

World’s richest man Bill Gates has welcomed PM Modi’s move to demonetize 500 and 1000 rupee notes last week. He said that the shift to digital payments has to be quicker in India to be on par with the other nations. Gates is currently in India as a part of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation program. The Microsoft founder met Minister of Information Technology, Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad in Delhi along with other members of the B&G Foundation.

“It’s a very exciting time in India and some of these digital platform opportunities are really quite amazing. The government has invested manpower and the payments banks and payment infrastructure. It is now a case of building the applications on top of those. We need to work on health issues, health applications. Our Foundation is committed to working on those areas – relationship with this ministry will be very critical for us,” Gates said.

Sources say that Gates is keen to get into the business of e-payments and is planning to streamline the cashless payment systems at countries with weaker economies. Gates is also interested in partnering with the digital village scheme, where the government has identified 1,000 villages for digital education. Gates foundation has expressed their willingness to work with start-ups, which can build applications and value-added services for Aadhaar and UPI. The ministry would identify such start-ups and refer them to the Foundation.

“We had a very profitable meeting, Bill Gates is a true friend of India. He is working enormously in India through his Foundation. It was exciting to hear his deep interest for digital payments in India and also digital health. I disclosed to him the entire nature of Aadhaar-enabled payments on other platforms and also digital health, and also gave him an outline of entire digital India program,” Prasad was quoted saying by a leading business daily.