Started in 2007, the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival (GKSF) is an annual event that attracts shoppers from far and near for an exclusive shopping experience. The festival is conducted in the months of December and January by the Tourism Department of Kerala in close coordination with the Industries & Commerce Department, Finance Department and Local Self Government Department. This event is primarily aimed at promoting and developing trade and commerce and the Industrial sector of Kerala by leveraging on its popularity as a Tourist destination.

The GKSF brings together thousands of merchants and millions of consumers. And, therefore, this event could also be seen as the one of the largest aggregation of merchants and consumers for a sizeable period of time, a platform which should be effectively utilized to promote and drive digital payments and financial inclusion. The Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion (CDFI) participated in the 9th Edition of the GKSF in partnership with the Government of Kerala precisely for this purpose i.e. to promote and drive digital payments and financial inclusion through GKSF.

The Digital GKSF used lucky-draws as an incentive for payments made electronically. GKSF issued ‘Digital GKSF’ coupons (sent to shoppers on their mobile phones) to shoppers who used their debit cards to make payments. The digital coupons were entitled to prizes in the Fortnightly Draw and Mega Draw.

CDFI participated in the Digital GKSF partnering with the Directorate, GKSF to support the following broad objectives

• Building partnerships with Banks and other agencies to promote cashless transactions
• Promoting Digital GKSF to create widespread awareness amongst consumers and merchants
• Enabling Banks to acquire merchants who are yet to place cashless payment infrastructure in their establishments
• Incentivizing consumers who opt for cashless transactions with additional luck draw coupons, over and above merchant-offered coupons

This unique experiment allowed GKSF & CDFI to gain valuable insights into consumer behaviour, role of incentives in adoption of digital payments technology, acceptance of debit cards among merchants and consumers etc.

On the lines of this model, Niti Aayog and NPCI used lucky draws to incentivise cashless transactions under the Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-dhan Vyapar Yojana.

For its contribution, CDFI was awarded the “Best Innovation Partner for GKSF 2015”.