Abhishant Pant makes a debit card transaction at Bengali Fish Centre near IIT Powai. The vendor has invested in an mPOS machine that connects to a smartphone via bluetooth and accepts card payments. Pics/Datta Kumbhar

For Abhishant Pant, the cashless experiment began in February, much before PM Narendra Modi gobsmacked the nation with news of demonetisation. Unable to convert his Indian currency beforehand, Pant spent five days in Singapore on his debit card. “When I shared my hassle-free experience on social media, many users commented that living cashless in Mumbai would be the real challenge. That was the trigger,” says the 35-year-old fintech (financial technology) professional, who has been thriving without a paisa in his wallet for 280 days now (from March 13, to be precise). Recently, he was invited to speak at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm, and is the subject of a soon-to-air BBC documentary.