Key TakeAways
- The latest RBI guidelines for banks, NBFCs, and other payment systems focus on safety and risk mitigation
- These institutions must follow the Master Direction set of guidelines issued by the RBI
- Stay safe from financial fraud by keeping your personal and financial information protected
For almost everything including online shopping, banking, trading, and digital transactions, our entire worlds have been reduced to the screen of a computer or a mobile device. Most of us now use our credit cards or net banking so much that we even store our card numbers or logins on our personal devices. While going digital is the way ahead, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, has noted with great concern the increasing number of cybercrimes, digital frauds, and financial scams in the country, which leave the end-user vulnerable and prone to financial losses. To prevent them and to instate financial and digital security, the RBI has come up with several guidelines.
RBI Guidelines for Digital Safety
The latest RBI guidelines for banks, NBFCs, and other payment systems focus on safety and risk mitigation –
- To make digital transactions safer, the apex bank of India may restrict websites and applications including e-commerce sites from storing credit card numbers for future use or one-click pay. This means from July 21, users may have to enter their card number, expiration date, CVV, and OTP every time they transact digitally. This also means that there is a lesser risk of financial information theft and fraud
- The RBI has also issued a set of guidelines, the Master Direction, which are common minimum standards to be achieved by all commercial banks, small finance banks, payment banks, and NBFCs. These standards are specifically meant to achieve enhanced digital security and minimise outages, frauds, and cybercrimes. The Master Direction also reduces risks of financial and information theft by third-party partners and other players by specifying the criteria for such partnerships, applications, and gateways
- To educate the end-user about cybersecurity and financial safety, the RBI has made it mandatory for banks, NBFCs, and digital payment systems to provide the customers with secure usage guidelines (in the user's preferred language). These shall guide the user during and after the first usage and after every new update to the digital system. Apart from these usage guidelines, the digital applications shall also contain training programs meant for the end-user or the customer
What can you do as a user?
As an end-user, you must take digital security and protection seriously. Here are a few tips to keep digital data leaks and financial frauds at bay:
- Never share your credit card/debit card/ATM card/EMI network card numbers in public, on social media sites, promotional forms, lottery tickets, email forms, on-call or messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
- Do not write your financial accounts’ login and passwords, OTPs, and CVVs anywhere. It is best to commit them to memory.
- Do not click on any suspicious links sent to you through email or texts. Do not enter your personal or financial information on Google forms/ advertisements/suspicious links online.
- Always verify the authenticity of any person or entity trying to gain access to your personal details and financial information.
Report any fraudulent activities to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal at - https://cybervolunteer.mha.gov.in/webform/Volunteer_AuthoLogin.aspx. Remember, your awareness and diligence are your best defences.
