No ATM PIN for online transactions

No ATM PIN for online transactions and other measures to make digital payments safe

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a set of rules for payment aggregators and payment gateways to make digital payments safer for users. The central bank issued these rules through a notification, 'Guidelines on the regulation of payment aggregators and payment gateways', on March 17, 2020. The guidelines aim to minimize the risk of digital payment frauds and to keep customers' financial data safe

The guidelines state that payment aggregators, such as Razorpay, CC Avenue, etc., will now have to stop giving the option of using ATM PIN to users to validate/complete online transactions. This means that for payments over Rs 2000 users will be able to use only OTP for verification. This way a person's ATM PIN will not be available online to the aggregator or payment gateway (or even a hacker) and therefore be safer.

RBI has asked such aggregators to make sure that all refunds are credited back to the original source of payment unless specifically agreed by the customer to credit to an alternate source. Currently, many e-commerce companies either compulsorily or by default credit refunds into e-wallets of customers. Consequently, the payer is unable to get the money back into his bank account.