INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Atmadip Ray Ashwin ManikandanMUMBAI: With digital transactions gaining currency, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced
customer-protection measures to promote and improve confidence in the channel that would help New Delhi achieve its objective of nudging the
country to a ‘less-cash’ economy.
In two separate programmes, the RBI announced reduced consumer liability in case of reported
fraudulent digital transactions, and a grievance redressal mechanism for such modes of payment
“The RBI’s endeavour to facilitate a less-cash society has facilitated a significant rise in the volumes, value and channel for
conducting digital transactions,” central bank deputy governor M K Jain said Wednesday.
“For promoting trust and confidence in this
powerful channel, a dedicated and powerful grievance redressal mechanism is a pre-requisite.” The central bank said customers reporting
unauthorised electronic transactions early can’t be made liable, irrespective of the instrument used
This is an extension of its previous direction where the RBI sought to protect customers for frauds in online and credit-card
transactions.
The ambit of customer protection against frauds has now been extended, with the benefit of limiting customer liability now
applying to unauthorised electronic transactions involving prepaid payment instruments
The central bank will issue the relevant guidelines by the end of December.
Earlier, RBI said customers can’t be made liable at all if
they notify the bank within three working days of the fraud
RBI had capped the customer liability at Rs 25,000 if they reported unauthorised transactions within seven working days
The central bank has also unveiled an ombudsman scheme for digital transactions as a customer-protection initiative
“An ombudsman scheme… is being formulated by RBI to provide a cost-free and expeditious avenue to tackle the rising number and
complexity of complaints from this channel,” Jain said.
This September, 181 million NEFT transactions worth about Rs 18 lakh crore and
486.5 million mobile banking transactions worth about Rs 21.3 lakh crore took place in the banking system, according to the latest RBI
