INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Top payment companies owned by global giants Google, Alibaba and Walmart are seeking regulatory and government intervention against alleged
inefficiency at some banks and telcos in helping curb customer frauds
These are UPI based frauds where customer accounts are compromised after the victims are socially manipulated either through a targeted
phone call or through SMSes by the fraudsters to remotely gain access to sensitive financial information, such as bank account details or
proliferation of these fraudsters in Hindi heartland districts.
The contention of the payment companies is that because the payment
interface is such that the function of banks and telecom operators is largely restricted to backend processes, the major brunt of criticism
with telecom operators that make a small amount of money on these SMSes and are letting our brand name be abused by letting these messages
challenges in monitoring fund flow once the bank account gets compromised by the fraudster as often times it is found that accounts used by
fraudsters are registered under fake names and addresses
Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe, the three companies that dominate over 90 per cent of UPI market share in India, are now seeking regulatory
intervention for a more proactive and collaborative industry led response system to deal with customer frauds.
For example, while Google Pay
has made multiple representations to NPCI over the last six months on the issue of KYC negligence by banks, Walmart's PhonePe too is
working with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Reserve Bank of India to highlight the laxity of telecom operators in blacklisting SMS
Saikat Mitra, Director, Trust - Safety, Google India
other hand has led a group of seven internet companies such as Swiggy, Zomato and Ola to both the banking regulators RBI and telecom
regulators TRAI to point out the systemic lapses emerging from negligence of partner businesses
electronic banking, up 75 per cent from the 8,487 such complaints registered in FY18
Similarly, the complaints around debit card and ATM related frauds surged nearly 50 per cent in this period to 36,539 in FY19.