[captn3m0]

Sadly, the answer to almost all of your issues is regulation.

India, in response to various terrorist attacks, enacted laws that made:

1. Burner phones impossible. Every new SIM requires a physical KYC

2. Every bank account requires KYC. And linking to a phone number

3. If you are a public WiFi operator(such as an Airport or a Internet Café), you are bound by law to keep KYC records of who used your services. The easiest way for this in India (that covers almost everyone) is to send an OTP over SMS. Sadly, this doesn’t work if you just landed in India and don’t have a working SIM.

The credit cars on PoS is more of a US issue because US banks refuse to support chip-and-PIN. With NFC payments being supported more and more (no PIN required), this should get easier - but I don’t think of this as a fault in the Indian system.

Disclaimer: I work at a Indian payments company.