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India moved to chip and pin a long time ago and stopped magnetic stripe swiping soon after. And for all CNP, there's additional factor of authentication (majorl

India moved to chip and pin a long time ago and stopped magnetic stripe swiping soon after. And for all CNP, there's additional factor of authentication (majorly, SMS OTP from the issuing bank). These are mandated by the regulator (RBI) and everyone had to comply quite quickly. Yes, receiving SMS OTP for every CNP transaction is a hassle but for majority of the people this is the only way they have ever used cards, so they are okay with it. So, this killed the type of fraud that the author discusses. But there are other types of frauds (social engineering, ATM skimming etc) for which major defense in India is fixed rules based daily limits and mandatory SMS notifications of any deposit/withdrawal on your account. Of course it doesn't help very small account holders.

xmprt 6y ago
That's an interesting system. Do prepaid cards work without SMS OTP? And how long do lines get if you have to wait for OTP every time you make a transaction? Lastly, are cash transactions still commonplace (almost all my transactions were cash when I was a kid)?
- ffpip 6y ago
  SMS OTP is only for online transactions (On the bank's website, amazon, etc) Physical Card + 4 digit PIN is at the ATM or the bank. So no long lines waiting for OTP.
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  For majority of the people, cash is still the main mode of payment. A new mobile payment called UPI that supports P2P payments based on simple virtual payment handle (<yourhandle>@<pspbank>) and QR based P2M (merchant) payments is growing rapidly to replace cash. Government is giving free/basic bank account to everyone through a program called Jan Dhan Yojna. So anyone with a smartphone and a free/basic bank account or even more basic payment bank account (requires lesser kyc) can pay using UPI. (Of course KYC is still a challenge but way better than other countries due to a national biometric id system called Aadhaar and central kyc registries for financial institutions). And regulator is taking a very interesting approach to open banking through unbundling. For example, see https://sahamati.org.in https://sahamati.org.in for financial data unbundling.

xmprt 6y ago

That's an interesting system. Do prepaid cards work without SMS OTP? And how long do lines get if you have to wait for OTP every time you make a transaction? Lastly, are cash transactions still commonplace (almost all my transactions were cash when I was a kid)?

ffpip 6y ago
SMS OTP is only for online transactions (On the bank's website, amazon, etc) Physical Card + 4 digit PIN is at the ATM or the bank. So no long lines waiting for OTP.
vinay_ys 6y ago
For majority of the people, cash is still the main mode of payment. A new mobile payment called UPI that supports P2P payments based on simple virtual payment handle (<yourhandle>@<pspbank>) and QR based P2M (merchant) payments is growing rapidly to replace cash. Government is giving free/basic bank account to everyone through a program called Jan Dhan Yojna. So anyone with a smartphone and a free/basic bank account or even more basic payment bank account (requires lesser kyc) can pay using UPI. (Of course KYC is still a challenge but way better than other countries due to a national biometric id system called Aadhaar and central kyc registries for financial institutions). And regulator is taking a very interesting approach to open banking through unbundling. For example, see https://sahamati.org.in https://sahamati.org.in for financial data unbundling.