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The financial damage increased too, jumping from ₹421 crore to ₹2,054 crore. Maharashtra bore the brunt, accounting for over a quarter of the losses, while Tamil Nadu followed with 23%. A survey involving 23,000 people found that nearly half, 47%, of Indians have fallen prey to some form of financial fraud in the past three years. Out of those, 43% experienced unauthorized charges on their credit cards, and 36% fell victim to UPI scams. When it comes to bank charges, HDFC Bank takes 2.5% of the withdrawal amount or at least ₹500, whichever is higher. ICICI charges between 2.5% and 3%, with a minimum fee of ₹250 to ₹500. Kotak Mahindra’s fees include ₹300 per ₹10,000 (up to ₹500 max) or 2.5%, whichever is greater. These fees often come with immediate interest charges and no reward points and can even hurt your credit score if you don’t pay back on time. The World Bank’s latest Global Payment Systems Survey from October 2023 looks at cashless transactions all over the world. It shows that the average number of cashless transactions per person increased from 91 in 2017 to 135 in 2020. Emerging economies with low and middle incomes saw these transactions double, while higher-income countries experienced a smaller growth of around 17% during the same period. As of 2025, about 79% of adults worldwide have a financial account, whether through banks or mobile money services, up from 74% in 2021. In low- and middle-income countries, the figure stands at around 75%. Many people were helped for them to get paid, to save, or to borrow by the usage of digital payments that grew from 35% to 57% in developing countries from 2014 to 2021. For assessing creditworthiness, it is an idea that the World Bank does also support via alternative data such as utility bills, rent payments, or mobile usage. This approach is in fact especially helpful for those in low-income countries because many of those people do not have any formal credit history, so it is easier for them to then access financial services.

By EP Writers | 12 March 2026 | 6 min read
The financial damage increased too, jumping from ₹421 crore to ₹2,054 crore. Maharashtra bore the brunt, accounting for over a quarter of the losses, while Tamil Nadu followed with 23%. A survey involving 23,000 people found that nearly half, 47%, of Indians have fallen prey to some form of financial fraud in the past three years. Out of those, 43% experienced unauthorized charges on their credit cards, and 36% fell victim to UPI scams. When it comes to bank charges, HDFC Bank takes 2.5% of the withdrawal amount or at least ₹500, whichever is higher. ICICI charges between 2.5% and 3%, with a minimum fee of ₹250 to ₹500. Kotak Mahindra’s fees include ₹300 per ₹10,000 (up to ₹500 max) or 2.5%, whichever is greater. These fees often come with immediate interest charges and no reward points and can even hurt your credit score if you don’t pay back on time. The World Bank’s latest Global Payment Systems Survey from October 2023 looks at cashless transactions all over the world. It shows that the average number of cashless transactions per person increased from 91 in 2017 to 135 in 2020. Emerging economies with low and middle incomes saw these transactions double, while higher-income countries experienced a smaller growth of around 17% during the same period. As of 2025, about 79% of adults worldwide have a financial account, whether through banks or mobile money services, up from 74% in 2021. In low- and middle-income countries, the figure stands at around 75%. Many people were helped for them to get paid, to save, or to borrow by the usage of digital payments that grew from 35% to 57% in developing countries from 2014 to 2021. For assessing creditworthiness, it is an idea that the World Bank does also support via alternative data such as utility bills, rent payments, or mobile usage. This approach is in fact especially helpful for those in low-income countries because many of those people do not have any formal credit history, so it is easier for them to then access financial services.

Online shopping is a wider market; there are so many pros and cons there. From the economic point of view of preference for online shopping, what are the potential drawbacks? The first one is bargaining power—the bargaining power of the buyer is zero; there is no chance for that in online shopping. The term bargaining means the buyer compares the product and prices it at what it's worth for that product. If not, the buyer suggests some price to the seller, and then both are involved in bargaining for that product. In economics, it's one of the most important behaviors and characteristics of a buyer or consumer. But in online shopping, it's completely avoiding bargaining because the buyer and seller can't meet face-to-face. Sellers also don't have a chance to bargain the price, and at the time, as buyers also, they are both, and chances are avoided by online selling platforms. The second problem is satisfaction level—the satisfaction level of online shopping compared to direct marketing is less. In the term of economics, satisfaction is measured by utility. Direct markets give more utility to the buyer because direct markets give price satisfaction, product availability satisfaction, bargaining satisfaction, and touch-and-feel-the-product satisfaction. All of these are omitted by online shopping. So the satisfaction compared to direct market and online shopping, the utility or satisfaction, is less. And the next one is impulse buying—online shopping makes up impulse buying. The aim of buying a product online is one thing, but that platform recommends other related or sometimes unrelated products as well, and we unnecessarily purchase more products online. It's more likely to happen in online shopping than in direct marketing because online shopping platforms collect the information on our phones and suggest that product in the shopping platform, so buying chances are higher. It causes non-budgeting. And the next one is discouraging local businesses—the common point all know is online shopping is discouraging the local businesses. Because nowadays all are finding the products online, and they may be foreign products also, we don't purchase the domestic manufacturing product. Online markets give more similar products. Sometimes the price is also less compared to the direct market. But the main point is the local economy is affected because of discouraging the local businesses.

Features of online shopping- The feature of online shopping is to stop direct market purchasing and to shut down all retail shops. All consumers are converted into online shoppers, and the price of products is fixed by the online shopping platform, not by market forces (demand and supply of that product). And it's unfavourable to both buyers and sellers. Because the middleman of that online shopping platform only fixes the price of that product. The prices are higher for the consumer or buyer at the same time that online shopping platforms get that product to the seller at a low price and sell it at a higher price on their platform.

Keywords: Blog, Economics Perspective, The financial damage increased too, jumping from ₹421 crore to ₹2,054 crore. Maharashtra bore the brunt, accounting for over a quarter of the losses, while Tamil Nadu followed with 23%. A survey involving 23,000 people found that nearly half, 47%, of Indians have fallen prey to some form of financial fraud in the past three years. Out of those, 43% experienced unauthorized charges on their credit cards, and 36% fell victim to UPI scams. When it comes to bank charges, HDFC Bank takes 2.5% of the withdrawal amount or at least ₹500, whichever is higher. ICICI charges between 2.5% and 3%, with a minimum fee of ₹250 to ₹500. Kotak Mahindra’s fees include ₹300 per ₹10,000 (up to ₹500 max) or 2.5%, whichever is greater. These fees often come with immediate interest charges and no reward points and can even hurt your credit score if you don’t pay back on time. The World Bank’s latest Global Payment Systems Survey from October 2023 looks at cashless transactions all over the world. It shows that the average number of cashless transactions per person increased from 91 in 2017 to 135 in 2020. Emerging economies with low and middle incomes saw these transactions double, while higher-income countries experienced a smaller growth of around 17% during the same period. As of 2025, about 79% of adults worldwide have a financial account, whether through banks or mobile money services, up from 74% in 2021. In low- and middle-income countries, the figure stands at around 75%. Many people were helped for them to get paid, to save, or to borrow by the usage of digital payments that grew from 35% to 57% in developing countries from 2014 to 2021. For assessing creditworthiness, it is an idea that the World Bank does also support via alternative data such as utility bills, rent payments, or mobile usage. This approach is in fact especially helpful for those in low-income countries because many of those people do not have any formal credit history, so it is easier for them to then access financial services.

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