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> Because certain people used to evade tax by purchasing goods directly with their Paypal balance. So, instead of catching the tax evaders the RBI found it easi

> Because certain people used to evade tax by purchasing goods directly with their Paypal balance. So, instead of catching the tax evaders the RBI found it easier to ban the whole thing. PayPal wasn't helping in catching certain people either - or wasn't willing to come under the ambit of Indian banking/taxation rules. Besides how do you think one can "catch" certain people without actually enforcing some rules that companies agree to follow? You can work around it by asking a card processor to generate a bill every month and send it to the customer for an online payment - that's how ISPs do it. I am sure you know this. > Even big companies like Uber had to recently discontinue Credit card purchases because of these inane credit card policies of RBI Really? Flipkart does it, Amazon does it, Ola does it. Every damn company out there can do it but somehow Uber was/is unable to do it, right? Why? Because they didn't want to implement or go through the extra level of security added to every credit card transaction (either online - iPin or OTP, or off-line - PIN). That's one of the best security features RBI has introduced and I believe every country should have such additional plastic money security layers. > I really don't think it's about customer security (since the rest of the world seems fine with it) No, rest of the world isn't fine with it. And even if they are (let's assume for argument's sake) doesn't mean India should be too. Especially since seeing the minimal level of surveillance (it's a different devil altogether), policing, awareness and infrastructure to support these measure India has. So? India should let the fraud, thefts carry on till it catches up in infrastructure? I don't think so. > Now what can we do about it? First, imho, stop thinking on the lines that - these changes were made just to antagonize you "Startup people" and were not actually meant for consumer security, because they were and I as a, consumer, feel safe as hell having the ability to clear transactions with a PIN that only I know and a criminal can't do shit even if he/she has my credit card number, Exp date, and even CVV # - ridiculously all that is required to clear a transaction in many countries in of "rest of world" - esp. online. India is a huge nation and saying that credit card penetration is low might be the understatement of the century. People from all kinds of social, educational backgrounds are starting to use plastic money and they need these "ridiculous" security measure (just like I do). Now, yes implementation is not as it should have been or isn't ideal, but try to see the limitations and maybe come up with an idea and suggest it to the proper authority. Maybe collaborate with other founders and try to reach the RBI head - heard he is a very genuine and reasonable guy. But remember you should go with a plan and not a rant!

icebraining 12y ago
I agree, as an European not used to dealing with them before the Internet, the system is just inane nowadays. "Just give these numbers to each and every merchant you do business with, and trust they won't abuse or leak them. Remember that you have to check each and every transaction to make sure it's not fraudulent, and have fun paying higher prices because merchants get hit with billions in fraud every year". Our system of direct debit, where the client had (the rules might have changed recently) to authorize each merchant to charge your account, is much saner, even if some providers whine about it. Protip: if your clients can't be bothered to spend 2 minutes authorizing your charges, you're not providing enough value to them.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  The US system of authenticating the transaction vs the card/user seems to work pretty well. The US rapidly adopted online commerce and payment. Consumers, overall, have nothing to worry about. Since the merchants and banks are responsible for fraud on credit cards, they seem to be a bit more on to of things. N=1, but with Wells Fargo, my credit card gets blocked now and then due to suspected fraud. Once it was due to a cloned card being used. Bit of an annoyance getting a new card (they're no Amex, who'd always overnight me a card, no matter where I was), but otherwise I had zero financial worry. Compare to my debit card. Not one have I even revived a warning about it, let alone a block. Even when I gave it to someone to use and take cash out on in another country. EU and others seem to be rushing to implement strong auth, but as a consumer, screw that. Use machine learning and law enforcement to deal with it and let my experiences be unencumbered. Spending 2 minutes to authorize merchants seems like a large annoyance.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Since the merchants and banks are responsible for fraud on credit cards, they seem to be a bit more on to of things. But are they? "Total global payment-card fraud losses were $11.3 billion in 2012, up nearly 15% from the prior year. The United States—the only country in which counterfeit-card fraud is consistently growing—accounted for 47% of that amount, according to the Nilson Report: card issuers lost $3.4 billion and merchants another $1.9 billion." This kind of inefficiency doesn't come cheap. There's a reason why VISA and Mastercard disallowed merchants to charge more for CC transactions. EU and others seem to be rushing to implement strong auth, but as a consumer, screw that. Use machine learning and law enforcement to deal with it and let my experiences be unencumbered. Spending 2 minutes to authorize merchants seems like a large annoyance. How is having your card blocked and having to wait days to receive it not being encumbered? As for the debit card thing, that wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about remote payments, where we use direct debit, not debit cards.

icebraining 12y ago

I agree, as an European not used to dealing with them before the Internet, the system is just inane nowadays. "Just give these numbers to each and every merchant you do business with, and trust they won't abuse or leak them. Remember that you have to check each and every transaction to make sure it's not fraudulent, and have fun paying higher prices because merchants get hit with billions in fraud every year". Our system of direct debit, where the client had (the rules might have changed recently) to authorize each merchant to charge your account, is much saner, even if some providers whine about it. Protip: if your clients can't be bothered to spend 2 minutes authorizing your charges, you're not providing enough value to them.

MichaelGG 12y ago
The US system of authenticating the transaction vs the card/user seems to work pretty well. The US rapidly adopted online commerce and payment. Consumers, overall, have nothing to worry about. Since the merchants and banks are responsible for fraud on credit cards, they seem to be a bit more on to of things. N=1, but with Wells Fargo, my credit card gets blocked now and then due to suspected fraud. Once it was due to a cloned card being used. Bit of an annoyance getting a new card (they're no Amex, who'd always overnight me a card, no matter where I was), but otherwise I had zero financial worry. Compare to my debit card. Not one have I even revived a warning about it, let alone a block. Even when I gave it to someone to use and take cash out on in another country. EU and others seem to be rushing to implement strong auth, but as a consumer, screw that. Use machine learning and law enforcement to deal with it and let my experiences be unencumbered. Spending 2 minutes to authorize merchants seems like a large annoyance.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Since the merchants and banks are responsible for fraud on credit cards, they seem to be a bit more on to of things. But are they? "Total global payment-card fraud losses were $11.3 billion in 2012, up nearly 15% from the prior year. The United States—the only country in which counterfeit-card fraud is consistently growing—accounted for 47% of that amount, according to the Nilson Report: card issuers lost $3.4 billion and merchants another $1.9 billion." This kind of inefficiency doesn't come cheap. There's a reason why VISA and Mastercard disallowed merchants to charge more for CC transactions. EU and others seem to be rushing to implement strong auth, but as a consumer, screw that. Use machine learning and law enforcement to deal with it and let my experiences be unencumbered. Spending 2 minutes to authorize merchants seems like a large annoyance. How is having your card blocked and having to wait days to receive it not being encumbered? As for the debit card thing, that wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about remote payments, where we use direct debit, not debit cards.