Cyber crooks target Indian payment systems

As the Indian government continues its digital payments push, consumers are expressing major security concerns, according to a survey by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

This shows that 96% of respondents felt cybercrime was most likely in the payments space, compared to 86% globally. This was followed by fund transfers and student loans, personal loans, traditional savings accounts and deposits, insurance and wealth management.

Indian organisations have seen instances of cybercrime increase from an average of 2,895 incidents a year to 6,284 in 2015–16. And it isn’t just banks who are struggling with this. FinTechs are also at risk.

The research notes that, “…the exponential growth and integration of FinTech companies into the existing financial network, along with the lack of well-established regulations, will have the power to destabilise the current markets and significantly increase the systemic risks.”

The booming FinTech sector could also spark innovation without adequate controls, leading to fraud and regulatory intervention and even the collapse of startups.