Question : Digital Payments

(a) whether the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently constituted a high level Committee headed by Infosys Chairman to suggest measures to strengthen the safety and security of the digital payments in the country;
(b) if so, the details of the composition of the Committee and the time by which the Committee is likely to submit its report to the Government;
(c) whether there are several gaps in the present ecosystem and people are afraid to make use of the digital transactions; and
(d) if so, the extent to which those gaps are likely to be removed in order to increase the customers confidence and trust?

The Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance


(a) & (b) As apprised by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), with a view to encourage digitisation of payments and enhance financial inclusion through digitisation, the RBI has constituted a High-Level Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments vide Press Release dated January 08, 2019. The Composition of Committee is as under:
1. Shri Nandan Nilekani, Former Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman
2. Shri H.R. Khan, Former Deputy Governor, RBI Member
3. Shri Kishore Sansi, Former Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Vijaya Bank Member
4. Smt. Aruna Sharma, Former Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology and Steel Member
5. Shri Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer, Centre for Innovation, Incubation &Entrepreneurship(CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad Member

The Committee will submit its report within a period of 90 days from the date of its first meeting.

(c) & (d) As per RBI’s circular on ‘Customer Protection – Limiting Liability of Customers in Unauthorised Electronic Banking Transactions’ dated 6.7.2017, in case of unauthorised transactions occurring due to contributory fraud/negligence/deficiency on the part of the bank and due to third party breach, with customer notifying the bank within three working days of receiving communication from the bank regarding the unauthorised transaction, the customer is entitled to zero liability.
RBI, vide its circular dated 21.6.2018 on ‘Control measures for ATMs – Timeline for compliance’, has advised banks to initiate immediate action to implement the control measures for ATM, including up-gradation of software in a time bound manner and to closely monitor the compliance.

Further, RBI, vide its circular dated 27.8.2015 on ‘Security and Risk Mitigation Measures for Card Present and Electronic Payment Transactions – Issuance of EMV Chip and PIN Cards’, has advised banks to ensure that by December 31, 2018 all active cards issued by them are EMV Chip and Pin-based.

Vide the circular of RBI dated 6.7.2017 as mentioned above, banks are advised to provide customers with 24x7 access through multiple channels (at a minimum, via website, phone banking, SMS, e-mail, IVR, a dedicated toll-free helpline, reporting to home branch, etc.) for reporting unauthorised transactions that have taken place and/ or loss or theft of payment instrument such as card, etc.

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