Digital Wallet Adoption for the Oral Segment in India

The objective of this research was to develop a conceptual wireframe of a mobile wallet for "oral" (illiterate and partially literate) people to use. The user interface was developed keeping in mind the cognitive usability constraints of the oral segment.  

Key observations from the study include:

• The oral segment includes about 264 million Indians (including 23 million youth aged 15-24).
• Most oral adults cannot decode multi-digit numeral strings (place-value) in large numbers, especially four or more digits.
• This numeric cognitive disability will inhibit the use of mobile wallets, diverting users, whether literate or not, towards ‘over-the-counter’ markets.
• The oral segment has many strengths to leverage, including common ability to read one- to two- digit numbers, count and manipulate four-digit numeric sums using cash notes and coins - relying on color, proportional sizes, shapes and images, as well as numbers, conduct basic mental calculations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, ratio – acquired through participation in the cash economy.

The report offers the following recommendations for financial service providers and other stakeholders:

• The oral segment should be treated as separate and distinctin digital financial services.
• FSPs targeting part or all of the segment should empirically test capabilities to identify relevant strengthsand weaknesses of users to build highly usable and learnable designs.
• Early adopters in the segment may include youths aged 25-35, adopters of other mobile phone features like calculators and address books.
• An open-source library of oral icons, addressing the full range of digital financial services, should be developed for India.