Digital payment surge calls for fixing firewalls

In December, the Central Bureau of Investigation registered a case against 15 Paytm customers for allegedly cheating the digital wallet of Rs 6.15 lakh ($9,000). This was done on a complaint by Paytm’s parent company One97, which is backed by China’s Alibaba Group. 

The case was registered under various sections dealing with criminal conspiracy, forgery, etc. - and under provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act. 

Top company executives say wallet security has been a prime concern for them post-demonetisation as transactions have grown manifold. “No one can actually hack into our servers and steal data or money because there are different levels of security,” Deepak Abbot, Senior VP at Paytm, told IANS, adding that they have intrusion detection programmes by third-party security experts that regularly check the systems for any vulnerability.

Paytm claims to have over 177 million users (as of Dec, 2016) and have handled nearly one billion transactions last year. Abbot says the number of transactions at Paytm is up three times as compared to the numbers recorded before demonetisation and the volume has grown 3.5 times. “Paytm saw 14-15 per cent growth month-on-month even before demonetisation. When the cash situation improves in the country, we may not see a 100 per cent growth, but we will settle for a much higher percentage of growth,” Abbot told IANS. 

Abbot pointed out that the Paytm wallet is PCI-DSS certified which is a proprietary information security standard for organisations dealing with online transactions. “As per the RBI guidelines, every wallet needs to keep the users’ money in an escrow account. So even if the escrow account is of Paytm, the company cannot access it. Also, daily, the company has to share the transaction data with RBI. We are as transparent as can be because of the rules and regulations,” he noted. Rohan Khara, Director of Product, MobiKwik, says their user base has crossed 45 million and they are witnessing five million transactions daily.