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Whilst the convenience of credit cards mean that payment disruption in developed markets may occur at a snail's pace, some believe that the absence of widespread debit/credit card usage will lead markets such as India to 'leapfrog' towards mobile based payment platforms.
The creation of the so-called 'India stack', whereby the government has played a key role in creating digital finance infrastructure (much of it through opening API's to its own services, but also by creating entirely new networks) is not just applicable to India, but could serve as a global template for the revolution of financial services if it succeeds.
This view appears to follow the maxim that 'this time is different', as previous efforts at banking digitization have been painfully slow in a country where cash remains king.
The Indian fintech story is different. The Indian government has a massive problem with an opaque, cash-based economy that has dominated the country for decades. With the majority of its citizens lacking access to formal banking services, India had nothing to lose by encouraging out-of-the-box innovation that would seem insane to the U.S. financial services establishment. The only benefit of having poor infrastructure is that once in a generation — when people, policy and timing align — a country can reboot and leapfrog the developed world because there is no material incumbent investment or scale to protect. The fintech innovation in India today has been built completely outside the established “way of how things work,” and with minimal concern for which incumbents may suffer or go out of business as a result.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/indias-fintech-revolution-is-primed-to-put-banks-out-of-business/
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