India will soon have an online fraud registry with real-time data

• As digital payments industry booms, the RBI is going to set up a central payments fraud information registry.
• The detailed framework for the registry will be set up by October 2019.
• The Indian digital payments industry has seen a boom over the years and is set to be a $6 billion industry by 2020.

The Reserve Bank of India has said it will set up central payments fraud information registry to monitor risks in the rising digital payments segment.

“At present, there is a mechanism in place for banks to report all banking frauds to the Central Fraud Monitoring Cell of the Reserve Bank. With the digital payment ecosystem making substantial progress in terms of growth of payment infrastructure as well as volume and value of digital payment transactions, fraud risk monitoring and management by the stakeholders have assumed importance,” said the statement from the RBI.

The Indian digital payments is all set to swell to $6 billion by 2020, according to Nasscom.

Fintech startups like Paytm, Mobikwik, Razorpay are increasing their user base. Added to that, global giants like Amazon, Google and WhatsApp too are entering the space, making RBI’s move extremely timely.

To improve consumer confidence, RBI is moving to introduce a body that will track frauds.

“Payment system participants will be provided access to this registry for near-real time fraud monitoring. The aggregated fraud data will be published to educate customers on emerging risks,” said the statement from RBI.

The central bank will put a detailed framework in place by October 2019.

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