As per the RBI Annual Report 2022-23, banks experienced the highest number of fraudulent transactions in the digital payment category in the fiscal year 2022–2023. The government plan To reduce the increasing number of online payment fraud cases the government decided to intends impose a minimum time limit for a transaction.
according to the plan on the table, a time limit of four hours will apply every time a user makes the first payment over Rs 2,000 to another user they have never transacted with before.
“We are looking to add a time limit of four hours for first-time digital transactions over Rs 2,000. The discussion will be taken up during a meeting on Tuesday with government and industry stakeholders including the Reserve Bank of India, various public and private sector banks, and tech companies like Google and Razorpay,” a senior government official said, requesting anonymity.
“Basically, how it will work is that you will have four hours after making a payment to someone for the first time to reverse or modify the payment. It will be along the lines of NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) where the transaction happens within a few hours. Initially, we did not want to have any amount limit thresholds, but through informal discussions with the industry, we realised it could impact small-scale buying like groceries etc. so we are planning to give a leeway to transactions under Rs 2,000,” the official added
According to data from FY2023, there were 13,530 fraud cases in the banking system totaling Rs 30,252 crore. Of these, 6,659 cases, or nearly 49 per cent, fell into the category of digital payments using cards or the internet.
Earlier in this month, UCO Bank had to disable its IMPS system temporarily after it reported credit of Rs 820 crore to its users via the payment mode. The bank took steps to recover Rs 649 crore but the case acted as a catalyst for the discussion on the digital payments‘ security.