A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit THE 2018 GOVERNMENT E-PAYMENTS ADOPTION RANKING An assessment of government enablement of e-payments growth Sponsored by The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking Contents Acknowledgements 3 About this study 4 Executive summary 5 Introduction 11 2018 GEAR rankings 17 Category results 19 1. Citizen-to-Government (C2G) 19 2. Government-to-Citizen (G2C) 23 3. Business-to-Government (B2G) 27 4. Government-to-Business (G2B) 29 5. Infrastructure 31 6. Social and economic context 35 7. Policy context 39 Conclusion 43 Future e-payment trends 44 Appendix I: Overall and category rankings 45 Appendix II: Country profiles 53 Appendix III: Methodology 127 1 The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking About The Economist About Visa Inc. Intelligence Unit The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company research arm of The Economist Group, publisher of that connects consumers, businesses, financial The Economist. As the world’s leading provider of institutions and governments in more than 200 country intelligence, we help governments, countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable institutions and businesses by providing timely, electronic payments. Visa operates one of the reliable and impartial analysis of economic and world’s most advanced processing networks, development strategies. Through our public policy VisaNet, which is capable of handling more than practice, we provide evidence-based research for 65,000 transaction messages per second, with policymakers and stakeholders seeking measurable fraud protection for consumers and reliable outcomes, in fields ranging from finance and payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and gender to energy and technology. We conduct does not issue cards, extend credit, or set rates and research through interviews, regulatory analysis, fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, quantitative modelling and forecasting, and display enable its financial institution customers to offer the results via interactive data visualisation tools. consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay Through a global network of more than 650 ahead with prepaid or pay later with credit analysts and contributors, we continuously assess products. and forecast political, economic and business The mission of Visa’s Global Public Policy conditions in more than 200 countries. For more department is to position Visa as a leader in information, visit www.eiu.com. supporting public policies that expand digital payments and promote an open, competitive and Project team secure environment, helping individuals, businesses Hilary Steiner, Research Director and economies to thrive. It supports this mission by Atefa Shah, Project Manager promoting a knowledge-led dialogue on digital Robert Smith, Lead Researcher payments and illustrating Visa’s shared value with Anjali Shukla, Research Analyst governments through thought leadership and evidence-driven research. 2 The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking Acknowledgements The following researchers, country analysts and specialists contributed to this report. We thank them for their contributions: Country analysis: Diane Alarcon, Isadora Arredondo, Omer Bor, Nitara Dandapani, Laura Ediger, Mirna Elmedany, Andrei Franklin, Anna Gilmour, Portia Hunt, Daniel Honoré Jensen, Aleksandar Jovicic, Bernard Kennedy, Imraan Khakoo, Jaekwon Lim, Susana Martinez Nadal, Christopher Mc Innes, Colin Meyn, Solon Molho, Edward Todd Owens, Roland Papp, Mona Rahmani, Devika Saini, Zain Taha, Yoshie Ueno, Pim-orn Wacharaprapapong, Eleanor Whitehead, Nick Wolf and Sabika Zehra. Model and report production: Mike Kenny, Marcus Krackowizer, Peter Ouvry, Sahil Panjrath, Janet Sullivan and Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh. The findings, interpretation and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Visa. Published September 2018 3 The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking About this study The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption government cannot do more to facilitate Ranking (GEAR) is an Economist Intelligence Unit e-payments and promote broad digitisation within (EIU) global Index and benchmarking study its borders. Rather, it signifies that the country has commissioned by Visa. This is the third edition of the highest score based on the scoring guidelines the study. The first and second editions were relative to other countries in the study and thus published in 2007 and 2011, respectively. The scores the highest in this benchmarking model. research for this study was conducted between fall The following report discusses the key findings 2017 and spring 2018 by a global team of country from the research and the accompanying analysts. benchmarking Index. An executive summary is The objective of the study is to measure included to highlight the overall key findings governments’ efforts to enable e-payments gathered during the research programme. This is adoption. This is approached in two overall followed by an introduction to the study and seven dimensions: i) the availability of government sections that identify key findings for each of the electronic transaction services and ii) the categories in the index: Citizen-to-Government underlying environment of mechanisms that (C2G) e-payments; Government-to-Citizen (G2C) support digitisation for all transactions, such as e-payments; Business-to-Government (B2G) policy and infrastructure. e-payments; and Government-to-Business (G2B) In the benchmarking model that underpins the e-payments; Infrastructure; Social and economic research programme, scores were normalised on a context; and Policy context. Finally, several case 0–100 scale using the min-max value of each studies on unique developments within the indicator. A normalised score of 100 in the index government e-payments space are incorporated to does not signify that a country has a perfect score provide additional detail. and has no more room for improvement or that a 4 The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking Executive summary The global e-payments ecosystem continues to the availability of government transaction evolve at a staggering pace, as traditional concepts services, and the underlying factors that affect of finance, personal identity and trust are upended e-payments adoption, such as policy and almost overnight by technological advances. infrastructure. The overall score and category Governments have been trying to strike a balance scores in this benchmarking index are on a between e-payments’ promise—for instance, normalised scale of 0–100 and represent how increased efficiency in tax collection and social countries rank against one another.1 services expenditure—and their possible risks. Four of the Index’s seven pillars examine the Like consumers, governments can choose availability of certain government payment whether or not to participate in e-payments, as services—Citizen-to-Government (C2G) either a payer or a payee. As a payer, the e-payments, Government-to-Citizen (G2C) government is a buyer of services and goods and e-payments, Business-to-Government (B2G) thus needs to pay its suppliers; the government also e-payments and Government-to-Business (G2B) transfers money to its residents, businesses and e-payments. These measure the availability of institutions, as well as to other governments. As a e-payment facilities, and not whether they are payee, the government receives payments from actually used. For instance, countries such as India those parties. Given the significant size of the public and Indonesia that have electronic capability for sector in most countries, the opportunity for income tax payments have long had trouble governments to participate in and influence collecting taxes—a problem they hope e-payments e-payments is sizeable. To understand the growth can help to ameliorate. The other three pillars— and evolution of specific governments’ enablement Infrastructure, Social and economic context and of e-payments adoption and to gauge where Policy context—examine the underlying factors countries stand in relation to one another, The that affect adoption of those e-payment facilities. It Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) created the is worth reiterating that the transaction services Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking (GEAR) focused on here are government e-payments in 2007. Governments and other stakeholders may (where the state is either a payer or a payee), which use the ranking and underlying scores as a tool to 1 Note to readers: In this benchmarking model, scores were normalised on help improve their e-payment environments. a 0-100 scale using the min-max value of each indicator. Scores are normalised on a 0-100 scale in benchmarking models in order to compare The objective of the study is to measure the countries to one another and rank them. A normalised score of 100 in the index does not signify that a country has a perfect score and has no more extent to which countries enable payment room for improvement. Rather, it signifies that the country has the highest score based on the scoring guidelines relative to other countries in services on electronic platforms. This includes the study and thus ranks the highest in this benchmarking model. 5 The 2018 Government E-Payments Adoption Ranking is a segment of the much broader payments similar levels of development with small universe. differences across all of the index categories and an For the purposes of this research, e-payments additional