Are digital payments secure enough for the Indian economy to go cashless?

In my opinion, India is not ready for going totally cashless.

1. As per the report revealed by Qualcomm which is an American chip maker, no Indian e-wallet company is providing hardware level securities which is one of the most essential factors for preventing cyber theft. It also provided the solution by revealing that it is working on its chip in which many new modifications will be made to ensure the prevention of such attacks.

2. RBI, which is the leading operator of Indian economy has still not provided mandatory guidelines for the e-wallet companies.

3. As per the report, the most phishing attacks are performed in India.

4. In the states of UP, Bihar, Odisha etc there are no proper facilities for digital payments and people still believe in cash transactions.

Digital payment is a type of payment in which cash is transferred to another account digitally. It has its own advantages and disadvantages. It saves people time and it is quick and easy in nature. In India, internet connection is not available everywhere and without it digital payment is not possible. In rural areas, people are still aware of this payment process. In digital or online payment, there are cases of fraud and hacking which makes people scared to use this mode of payment but this happens in very rare cases. People should be aware of the digital payment like they should never share their OTP, pin or password with anyone. Security issues by online payments applications should be increased. In my view, the cashless economy is a big challenge for the country.

Hello, everyone.

Yes, it is secured but the only thing is we need to be sincere. There can be cyber crimes but we can avoid that by following some of the warning messages every time we are receiving on our phones and mails that are never share your password, otp and other such credentials.

But keeping this single negative point aside there are many benefits of using digital transactions. It is fast and safe. There will be no illegal transactions. There will be tax transparency as every transaction will be recorded via Aadhar no and pan no. We must aware and educate rural people for using digital transactions. For this government is launching many schemes like Pradhan Mantri Gramin Saksharta Abhiyan which says to make over 6000 rural households digitalised.

Thanks.

Hi,

No, the digital payments are not secure enough for Indian economy. A businessman always wants cash in flow & outflow for the smooth running of his business. Government of India's demonetization is not a good step in the sight of a businessman. There are so many small traders which do business daily, can't handle their current Bank A/c, they think daily business as a daily wages, reselling of a product daily & profit is the wage. So, they do not want to create their current A/Cs for the handling of the daily reselling business & paying to CA the fees of auditing & paying Income Tax. But the Indian government going to make country cashless, how can this be possible with population of 1.3 B. The cashless is profiting high level businesses not SMEs.

The fact that digital payments have made our task very easy. Now we don't have to carry huge cash in our pockets, we no mere have to think about cash being stolen made us feel the necessity of shifting the whole system to didgital payment. But when it comes to security then we are really lacking behind. Even in the west security is not 100%. I have heard cases where money is being deducted from people account without their knowledge, accounts are getting hacked. Even the crime is also transformed from pick pocketers to cyber criminals which is even more dangerous. Another major concern is illiteracy where people are easily fraud by these hackers. So shifting complete system online will certainly leave us nowhere. So some major security steps are needed to be taken.

In a country like INDIA where rural population comprises of 68.3% of the total population and internet penetration is around 31% there need to be imparted a lot of awareness and knowledge about the internet and then about the digital payments. It cannot happen overnight but initiatives taken by Government of India to make people know about the advantages of digital payments is on the rise. EX- people can now transfer money to any bank account via their Aadhar cards.

Yet there are hurdles at present for the Indian economy to go cashless.

There is lack of proper infrastructure which is needed for the smoother transaction.

People need to know about security available for safeguarding their money online.

How citizens could prevent against thefts and online frauds.

Digital payments are one of the best payment modes for the country. The best thing about is that it allows cashless transactions and one can access their money anywhere without having cash in hands, They all need for it is an ATM card. Moreover, in a developing country like India, it is important to acknowledge people about such facilities so that they can also get benefit from these new technologies. Digital payments modes are secure as well as very easy to access. Nowadays, nearly all people do have smartphones so they can easily access digital payments. In fact more the digital payments will be used less the cash will be used, which in turn will also save the paper. At last, we can conclude that digital payments should be promoted more and more in our country.

Hello everyone, my name is Mandy.

We are using digital payments for a variety of things like paying electric bills, paying EMI's, purchasing from online sites. If we make payments in big platforms like Amazon, Paytm, airtel, then we don't have to worry because those sites and interfaces are very secure and there is customer support available if anything bad happens during a transaction. But small sites are not that secure. The older generation lacks knowledge of making secure transactions. For example when the younger generation wants to book tickets then they will go to sites like Paytm, or Redbus, but when the older generation try to book the tickets they will type bus operators in the google and they will go into any random site which may compromise the data.

I think digital payments are secure enough to be used. In this age of fast technological advancement, the service providers always come up with better ideas to make our payment secure. As a matter of fact, the absoluteness of anything in this world can't be guaranteed. There are pros and cons to everything. So we have to make the best use of what is available to us. There may be the threat of hacking but with advanced technology and careful use, like not sharing the OTP can minimise the risk to a great extent. I think awareness about digital payments to common mass can really do world of good. Moreover we can't wait for eternity to apply this. There may be challenges but that can be overcome. Challenges should not become the hindrance in the path of development.

I respect the views of all members and I want to add some points in this discussion.

According to me, the digital payments are not secured enough because when it came to online payments then there is a huge danger of HACKING, you can see the latest example of Ransomware attack in INDIA. So if we make our all payments online today then we will be dependent on it and unfortunately, if the online system would be hacked some day then INDIA could face a huge problem as all the data related to the bank accounts of every Indian would be handover to the hackers.

So it could be a problem and if our country is able to make such system that can't be hacked then it would be a drastic change in the Indian economy and the illiteracy of people also would be a small problem.