Comment by pwn0

The tap & pay model is an extension of payment using credit cards which has been the preferred payment method in the west for decades. On the other hand, credit cards never caught on in India, specially among the middle and lower middle class folks which is a large chunk of the population. So while the west underwent evolution from paper currency to credit cards to digital payments, India skipped the credit card generation and went straight for digital payments thanks to cheap android phones and free/subsidized/cheap 3G/4G data costs.