OTP Please! When Digital Access is Not as Simple as It Sounds

Every ‘OTP please’ moment with our women entrepreneurs is not just about access; it is about agency. It is the difference between waiting for someone to help and pressing the button yourself.

Everybody has a smartphone today, and OTPs have quietly slipped into our daily lives. Payments, logins and verifications —sometimes it feels as if we need an OTP just to prove we are still alive.

In India, one billion OTPs are generated every day—powering everything from banking to food delivery-—as a pulse of our digital nation. I recently had to help our compliance consultants verify OTPs for partners of the cloud kitchens we set up in Bengaluru. Sounds simple on paper, right? This isn’t so much.  

The first hurdle is the website. If the people are available, the website is not. If the website is finally working, the people will disappear. After a few rounds of this timing mismatch, both stars finally align—people and websites.

The next hurdle is the OTP. Phone OTPs are usually smoother. It pops up as a message, you read it, and enter the digits. Done. But then comes the email. If the registered email ID differs, the process immediately halts. Even if it is correct, inbox is likely to be full of family photos and cloud backups, so the poor OTP mail never makes it through.

It sounds funny, but it is not. Because behind every “resend OTP” button is a silent reminder of how uneven our digital access really is.

The Digital Divide Hidden in Plain Sight

For many women in urban low-income neighborhoods of Bengaluru—the very women who are running home-based businesses, small eateries, tailoring units, and food stalls— the digital shift has been both empowering and exhausting.

In fact, over 84 percent of women entrepreneurs in India now say their business is “mobile-first,” meaning their phone is their office, market, and ledger. But device ownership does not always mean access or autonomy. Phones are often shared with family members; data packs are limited, and passwords are remembered by someone else. in this scenario, acting on a simple OTP becomes a collective family project.

Many women entrepreneurs under our programs share similar experiences. They manage orders on WhatsApp, take payments on UPI, and connect with suppliers online. Yet, when it comes to formal tasks like KYC, GST registration, or digital signatures, the screen becomes a wall.

Digital systems are designed for speed and convenience. But for many women, they have added a new kind of gatekeeping. A process meant to make things easier ends up making them invisible.

Why It Matters

Every click now decides access to markets, finance, and even identity. Government schemes, subsidies, and business loans all depend on digital verification. If you cannot log in, you simply cannot apply. If you cannot verify your email, you cannot access the benefits meant for you.

The pandemic accelerated digital adoption across India, but the leap was not equal. For many women, the jump from paper to portal came without a bridge. India has one of the strongest banking systems in the world, a solid base for inclusion, but strength on paper does not always mean access in practice. For many women, that digital bridge is still being built.

Building Real Digital Literacy

The solution does not lie in distributing more smartphones or hosting one-time training sessions. True digital inclusion requires patience, relevance, and community.

• Beyond Device Ownership: We must shift focus from just having a phone to knowing how to use it confidently, understanding safety, privacy, and simple problem-solving.
• Women Helping Women: Peer learning works. In our programs, we have seen women quickly learn when another woman demonstrates, translates, and troubleshoots in their language.
• Redesigning Reality: Digital systems need to account for shared devices, limited literacy, and local languages. Fewer steps, simpler interfaces, and voice-based access could change everything.
• Continuous Handholding: Digital comfort builds over time. What women need is not a crash course, but ongoing support from a friend, a field worker, or even a WhatsApp helpline to decode the digital maze.

From OTPs to Opportunity

Over time, it is a realization that every “OTP please” moment with our women entrepreneurs is not just about access; it is about agency. It is the difference between waiting for someone to help and pressing the button yourself.

Through PCI India’s Entrepreneurship Development programs, we have seen that change begin. The digital literacy built into the training helps women move from asking for help to logging in on their own. From using digital payments to managing records online, these small wins are reshaping confidence every day.

Every WhatsApp order is managed independently; every transaction is done without hesitation; it is a quiet rebellion against exclusion. So maybe “OTP Please” is not just a password request anymore. It is a reminder of how much patience, learning, and courage it takes for women to truly enter India’s digital world. And when they do, the system finally stops asking for proof. Because they have already arrived.

The author is Shruthy S Kumar, Project Officer – Udyamita, PCI India