‘Robust infrastructure essential for secure digital payments’

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) As India moves towards becoming a cashless economy, service providers will have to focus on infrastructure as well as end user tools to secure digital payments, National Cybersecurity Coordinator Gulshan Rai said on Friday, urging them to "take a step ahead in this direction".

Rai was addressing a function where a joint study "Securing India's Digital Payment Frontiers" by Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and digital payments major PayPal India, highlighting the current state of cybersecurity in the ecosystem, was released.

The study analyses India's journey in digital payments and its cybersecurity dynamics, prevailing cyberthreat landscape, polices, regulations, standards along with the future trends and best practices at the enterprise level.

"We believe securing digital payments is important for reposing trust and accelerating adoption. The partnership with PayPal would bring our collective experience in cybersecurity and digital payments for enabling a secured digital payments ecosystem in the Indian context," said Rama Vedashree, CEO of DSCI.

According to Swiss financial services holding company Credit Suisse, India's digital payments industry, currently worth nearly $200 billion, is expected to grow five-fold to reach $1 trillion by 2023.

A recent report by the Reserve Bank of India stated that the number of digital payment transactions stood at 1.06 billion in December 2017. The Indian government is targeting to reach 25 billion digital transactions by the end of this fiscal year.

In a "foreword" to the report, Vedashree and Phoram Mehta, Head of Information Security, APAC at PayPal, said that India, with a large share of 48 per cent of the world's unbanked and financially underserved, is a critical frontier for digital payments and fintech industry in general.

They said over the last few years, the digital payment space grew exponentially in India with over 400 organisations working to create and capture value in online commerce.

The study includes a perspective on the evolving digital payments sector in India including global perspectives on fintech revolution.

"Investments made in developing public digital payment infrastructure over the last few years are already showing results," the study said.

"UPI has emerged as the fastest growing payment interface in the country and while domestic startups continue to grow at break-neck speed by leveraging these innovations, entry of the global players like Google, PayPal and WhatsApp in India over the last few months speak volumes in regards to the opportunity, India offers in the fintech space."

According to the study, cybercrimes have impacted the industry in a big way.

"More than 1.9 billion records were lost in the first half of 2017 over approximately 960 reported incidents. Of this India's share was 274,198,181 records over 15 reported breaches," the study found.

With advancements in emerging tools and technologies like cryptocurrencies, Internet of Things (IoT), automation, Machine Learning (ML) and analytics redefining the future and fintech industry, the report recommends future deliberations to ensure robust and resilient Indian financial services industry that offers a secure experience.

The study said that a long-term strategy could help manage the dynamic global cybersecurity environment and controlling cybercrime.

Standardisation of data protection laws and cybersecurity framework, comprehensive regulatory guidelines on technology risk management, payment security management and business continuity management could help create secure environment for secure digital payment ecosystem, the study observed.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)