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Sentiment Analysis of Digital Wallets and UPI Systems in India Post

Demonetization Using IBM Watson

Conference Paper · January 2018

DOI: 10.1109/ICCCI.2018.8441441

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 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

Sentiment Analysis of Digital Wallets and

UPI Systems in India Post Demonetization
Using IBM Watson
Pallavi Maindola Neetu Singhal Akash D Dubey
Jaipuria Institute of Jaipuria Institute of Jaipuria Institute of
Management, Jaipur, Management, Jaipur Management, Jaipur,
Rajasthan, India Rajasthan, India Rajasthan, India
Abstract: The digital payment landscape is sprouting in the lives. Innovative features, adventurous and new services are
country at a dizzying step. After the demonetization, complete influencing the customer’s sentiments.
turnaround in the payment landscape has been observed. The
technology revolution and government initiative of cashless Since the beginning of this century, the evolution of various
economy, followed by demonetization saga has enabled the technologies have made the mobile devices not only a
evolution of multiple non-banking players in the payment space. communication device but also one of the prime sources of
While these e-wallets have made substantial grounds in the digital payments [1]. The digital payments are one of the
Indian economy system, it becomes eminent to analyze the
bridges to bring about digital movement in the country. But
customers’ perception towards these e-wallets. In this paper
this evolution would take sincere efforts since there are many
authors attempt to analyze the sentiments of digital wallet users
in India over different payment applications. The authors factors which pose challenges to this adoption of digital
analyses sentiments by using the IBM Watson software tools in payment systems. The use of internet, security issues and ease
various social networks by taking different payment system into of use are some of the primary reasons why the users remain
consideration. The authors analyzed the documents, forums, skeptical about the use of digital payment system [2].
tweets and other sources where the users shared their feedback
for the wallets from 8th November 2016 to 7th November 2017. As stated by Joshi [3], various modes of digital payment
This study brings various interesting insights about India’s systems like UPI, IMPS etc. have found remarkable patronage
readiness to adopt change for digital payment options and in last two financial years i.e. 2015-16 and 2016-17 in India.
sentiments of the users for the same. This study showed that the initiatives taken by the government
of India has resulted in positive way. But the main reason for
Keyword(s): Digital wallet, India, Watson Analytics,
Demonetization, PayTM, BHIM, UPI the digital payments during the last year has been the
Demonetization done by the government of India on 8th
I. INTRODUCTION November 2016. During this demonetization, 1000 and 500
rupees notes ceased to be legal tender anymore. For a country
Digitalization in India came into full force when the
where these notes formed 86% of the whole economy, it was a
government started an initiative known as a Digital India on
big step and the public had to think of alternatives till the new
July 2, 2015. The primary aim of this initiative was to ensure
currencies came into the public domain.
that all the government services are made available to all the
citizens electronically. It has played a very vital and During this phase, the digital payment methods found huge
substantial role in Indian economy. The concept of digital patronage. According to Chaudhari [4], even though these
India comprises of enhancing the online infrastructure and payment systems needed some improvements, they found
increasing the internet connectivity to make the country acceptance among the Indian citizens. Bhuvaneshwari and
digitally empowered in the field of technology. With this, Sivakavitha [5] did a research which showed that the urban
different mobile payments system or digital wallets came into population of Chennai city adopted the digital payment system
existence for the digital transactions. Many wallets and UPI at a rapid pace. Even districts like Trichy and Thanjavur in
systems got a great expansion after the digital India campaign Tamil Nadu state accepted the digital wallets mode of
like Paytm, Bhim etc. By these digital wallets, user can make payment at a rapid pace [6].
a purchase quickly and easily with the help of communication
technology. And now mobile payments system has emerged Even though one of the primary reasons for this fast adoption
into the extent that has created a great impact on our daily of digital wallets and UPIs in India was demonetization, the
citizens are now accepting these modes as their primary

978-1-5386-2238-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

methods of payment. Gupta [7] points out that the people are The positive and the main feature of this application is that it
now realizing the benefits of cashless transactions. Along with accredits the individuals to transfer money even if the user
the benefits, other services that these methods provide to the doesn’t have a bank account. Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd.
consumer plays a vital role in the acceptance of the digital has tied up with different brands and with different verticals
methods in India. like in travel it has collaborated with Red bus, Rajasthan State
Road Transport Corporation, Oyo rooms and Make my trips.
Since the country is adopting to the cashless transaction In entertainment, it has link up with Book my show PVR
methods at a very rapid pace, this study has been aimed to cinemas similarly it is associated with ecommerce and food
analyze the sentiments of the people towards these various and beverages industry too.
payment systems. The success of any enterprise depends on
their consumers’ reactions and therefore we have tried to MobiKwik
analyze which payment companies have been successful in
providing them efficient services. Like other digital wallets, MobiKwik provides mobile phone
based payment system and a digital wallet, was founded in
II. METHODOLOGY 2009 and from the day it was launched till now it has
significant footsteps in the Indian market and is growing in a
This research work uses IBM Watson analytics for social rapid way. It is also a RBI certified wallet and claims that they
media. IBM Watson is based on cognitive computing and have built their own technology using multilayers of security
helps the users to synthesize multiple unstructured and fraud prevention codes. User can use this application in
interpretations and analyze them intelligently [8]. IBM any device or in any operating system. Each and every single
Watson combines various capabilities for the cognitive penny customer added in his MobiKwik account is safe in his
computing which include natural language processing, wallet for the future transactions.
hypothesis generation and evaluation and dynamic learning. In
this research work, IBM Watson collected the data which Even in 2016, taking the users of older 2G mobile networks in
mentioned the given eight digital wallets and UPI systems. concern, MobiKwik launched MobiKwik Lite mobile app for
These data ranged from 8th November 2016 to 7th November those areas with poor internet connectivity so that everyone
2017. Seven primary sources were considered for the can take the advantage of the application and can have safe
collection of the data which included Twitter, Forums, transactions.
Reviews, Facebook Pages, Videos, Blogs and News.
PayTM
For this research work, the authors have analyzed the digital
It is Noida based largest Indian Ecommerce website which
presence of eight wallets in India post demonetization. The
was launched in 2010 and adds to the industry of Fintech in
authors have also analyzed the sentiments regarding the
India. It was founded by the Vijay Sekhar Sharma. Initially
mentions of the wallet in the cyber world. The wallets that Paytm started with online mobile recharge and bill payments
have been analyzed in this study are as follows: and recently, it has become an India’s largest mobile payment
gateway for all the ecommerce platform.
Oxigen
Paytm has over 20 million registered users as per their current
Oxigen wallet is the India’s first non-banking payment
study and analysis of data. Its fully approachable websites and
solution provider which was started in 2003 and is approved application has altered into a fully-fledged e-commerce
by RBI. Oxigen wallet is a unit of Oxigen Services India Pvt. market place offering various categories in every segment
Ltd. started by Mr. Pramod Saxena and endorsed by Sachin starting from electronics, mobile phones, sports and health,
Tendulkar. Services of Oxigen are integrated starting from the home and kitchen, books to baby and toys. Paytm is one of
instant recharges to the payment of bills and to the money those companies which have expanded in a relatively short
transfer to the tickets bookin. It strives to bring customer period of time. They have evolved from payment gateway
convenience services which customer can easily use in mobile into e-commerce and then to a digital wallet. The
or in desktop. According to the survey which was conducted demonetization has affected Paytm to a great extent which are
in 2016, by VC Circle, this app has 20 million users which is elaborated as follows:
accepted by approximately 9000 merchants within 10000 1. It has been found that transaction of Rs. 120 crores a day
online sites. It is the first online wallet which allowed and 7 million transactions every day.
customer to load cash in their mobile wallet. 2. The Gross Merchandise Value (GSV) for Paytm was $3
billion in 2015 and now it is $5 billion. And also it is
 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

expected that Paytm is looking at expanding and adding Jio money is a digital wallet and a mode of easy payment
up to 1,50,000 merchants. transaction which was launched by reliance Jio infocomm in
2016 which helps user to make instant payments like payment
of utility bills like electricity, water etc., recharging of DTH
FreeCharge
connections or mobile, transferring money to the bank account
Freecharge is an ecommerce website which is headquartered or to the friend or family or we can say just for everything.
in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is basically an online recharge
Jio mobile payment app provides the safe and secure
website which provides online provision to recharge any
payments on both physical and online stores. Even user can
prepaid mobile phone, postpaid mobile phone, DTH Data
link their bank accounts a different card with this Jio money
cards etc. for the quick payments. FreeCharge was founded in
app and can schedule monthly payments like rent and water
2010 and acquired by the Snap deal which is itself a large
and gas and all the bills accordingly, which is a special feature
ecommerce platform, which was being referred as a second
one can utilize positively. Jio money comprises of very smart
biggest takeover in the Indian ecommerce sector so far.
technology which includes the advanced features like setting
Recently in July 2017, Axis bank acquired FreeCharge which standing instructions for payments, checking and availing
it believes that company will extract value from FreeCharge varieties of discounts coupons and offers. User can also view
transaction. FreeCharge has been performing excellently on the list of available mobile providers and billers listed in the
data and transaction integrity, access, availability and app for the ease. Currently Jio has tied up with Tata sky,
authentication, as it is not linked to any particular specified Airtel and Dish Tv.
vendor. Its main feature is that it has an attribute of “data
BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money)
lifeline” that helps prepaid customers whenever they run out
of their data packs. This features is for the ease of the Developed by National Payments Corporation of India
customer and so that customer can stay connected with the (NPCI), BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is a mobile
application. which is based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) . This
app was launched by the Prime Minister of India, Mr.
PhonePe from Flipkart
Narendra Modi on 30 November 2016 at Talkatora stadium,
One of the most prominent ecommerce websites in India, New Delhi in Digi Dhan Mela. This app has been designed
Flipkart own the digital wallet PhonePe since April 2016, after keeping in mind that the users would just need a valid mobile
it was launched 2015. In 2016, PhonePe also affiliated itself number. A BHIM user can also make its own VPA besides the
with YES Bank and they have been introducing new features phone number. This app is different from the popular digital
together. PhonePe uses the encrypted software from National wallets in the sense that it works only as a transfer
Payments Corporation of India to enable the user to connect mechanism, transferring money from different bank accounts
his/her bank account to the mobile. and allowing the user to check their current balance in their
respective accounts.
Based on the government backed Unified Payment Interface
(UPI) platform, PhonePe offers seamless digital transaction BHIM allows the users to sign up with more than one account
experience. The usage of PhonePe has seen a massive growth to enable them to conduct the transactions, however, only one
post demonetization since the clients have preferred to stick to transaction can be done at a given time. This app is available
cashless payment due to scarcity of cash flows. However, in in 9 languages which includes the regional languages as well.
January 2017, the ICICI bank had blocked PhonePe
Amazon Pay
transactions since it did not follow the NPCI’s guidelines.
This fact was then confirmed by NPCI after which PhonePe It is an online payment service provided by amazon to its
had to shut down all of its operations on Flipkart to stick the users. It is available in India as well as in other countries like
rules prescribed by NPCI. Recently, PhonePe CEO Sameer U.S, France, Germany etc. In India people are fonder of using
Nigam has stated that the company aims to double the number cash rather than paying online so after demonetization it has
of transactions every two months. adversely impacted the e-commerce sector as people have no
cash just after demonetization. So to reduce this impact
Jio Money
Amazon introduced its own digital wallet Amazon pay to
promote digital payments and to increase its business.
 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

Amazon pay also enables faster refunds, as now customers account. It will also eliminate the need for sharing the
receive their refunds in amazon pay wallet not in their bank important credit details of a customer.

Figure 1 Number of mentions of different payment methods (in thousands)

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION While the mentions of the payment systems was from all over
the country, the authors analyzed the states from where these
For the analysis of the sentiments and other factors, the data payment systems got the maximum coverage. As it can be
was collected from eight different sources where consumers seen from figure 3, the maximum mentions about these
shared their sentiments towards the wallets and UPI systems payment systems was from Maharashtra, followed by West
from 8th November 2016 to 7th November 2017. The first Bengal, Karnataka, Delhi, Haryana and Tamil Nadu.
analysis that the authors did was the number of mentions these Maharashtra, being the financial and commercial capital of
payment systems obtained during this period. As it is quite India got the maximum mentions also because the stock
evident from figure 1, the number of mentions of PayTM market is also based in Mumbai.
superseded any other wallet with a huge difference. Post
demonetization PayTM has been able to tap into the highest
number of consumers and that is the reason behind the
popularity of PayTM. While PayTM got the highest number
of mentions, the second spot was obtained by BHIM, the UPI
system developed by National Payments Corporation of India.
Mobikwik and Oxigen also got reasonable mentions among
the consumers which can be seen from figure 1.

When the authors analyzed the sex ratio in the participation of

the mentions, it was concluded that AmazonPay has an equal
participation of male and female users. However, this 50:50
ratio participation may also be because the number of
mentions of AmazonPay has been much lesser as compared
other payment system. The next participation ratio was
obtained by MobiKwik which had 77% male users and 23%
female users. The lowest participation ration was obtained by
JioMoney which had 87% male and 13% female participation
as illustrated in figure 2.
 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

Figure 2 State wise classification of mentions of digital payment

methods in India

Figure 3 Gender wise classification of mentions of the digital payment systems in India

When the sentiments towards these payment systems were India. The results, on the whole, do seem to support BHIM,
analyzed, it was observed that the best experience was AmazonPay and PayTM as per the mentions by the users.
provided by BHIM payment system. BHIM was closely
followed by AmazonPay while Freecharge obtained third spot. IV. CONCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS
In terms of most negative sentiments, JioMoney came on top, In this research work, a post-demonetization analysis of the
followed by MobiKwik. The most number of neutral mentions digital payment systems in India has been done. This study
were done in the favor of PayTM while AmazonPay had the analyzed the consumers’ sentiments towards the eight digital
most number of mixed feelings (Ambivalent) mentions. wallets and UPI systems and also analyzed which payment
Figure 4 summarizes the complete sentiment analysis of the system found patronage amongst the citizens.
mentions of the digital payment systems that are prevalent in
 2018 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI -2018), Jan. 04 – 06, 2018, Coimbatore, INDIA

Figure 4 Sentiment Analysis of the mentions for digital payment methods in India

During this research work, it was found out that the UPI [3]. M. Joshi, "Digital Payment System: A Feat Forward of
system launched by NPCI found highest number of positive India", Research Dimension, 2017.
mentions during one year of post demonetization period. [4]. T. Chaudhary, "The critical analysis of cashless
It was also found out that highest number of mentions were transaction", International Journal of Commerce and
Management Research, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 92-94, 2017.
for PayTM, even though most of them ranged from positive to
[5]. D. Bhuvaneswari and S. Sivakavitha, "An Intellectual
neutral sentiments. Highest number of mentions were found to
Study on Preference towards the Usage of Electronic
be obtained from Maharashtra, followed by Delhi, West Wallets among Urban Population of Chennai
Bengal and Tamil Nadu. City", Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, vol.
Since this research work has been performed with the help of 3, no. 9, pp. 894-898, 2017.
IBM Watson, it must be quoted that the data gathered from [6]. R. Varsha and M. Thulasiram, "Acceptance Of E-Wallet
Twitter was 10% of total volume. However, there can be some Services: A Study Of Consumer Behavior", International
change observed if this 10% data is increased to a bigger Journal of Innovative Research in Management Studies,
quantity. Also, these sentiments can definitely change from vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 133-141, 2016.
[7]. R. Gupta, "Challenges and Benefits of Cashless Economy
time to time, given the services offered by each companies
in India", International Journal of Advance Research and
improve in process.
Innovation, 2017.
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IBM Watson and How it Works", Redbooks.ibm.com,
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