Rules for sending money online will change, transfer of more than Rs 10,000 will take so much time, this is the new security plan of RBI

RBI Online Transfer New Rules: At the same pace with which the scope of digital payments is expanding in the country, a huge increase in cases of online fraud (cyber fraud) is also being seen. To completely curb this online fraud, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is preparing to take a very big and strict step. RBI has put forward a new proposal, under which if any customer transfers online funds of more than ₹ 10,000, then it may take one hour (cooling-off period) for the payment to be completely cleared.

The banking industry of the country has welcomed and supported this big security step of RBI, but has also expressed some serious concerns regarding the everyday convenience of the general public and technical problems. Banks clearly believe that this strict rule will prevent fraud to a great extent, but common people may have to face a lot of trouble in everyday transactions.

There will be a halt of one hour on online transfers of more than ₹ 10,000

The RBI, in a discussion paper released in April, had made the important suggestion that whenever an individual customer, proprietor or partnership firm initiates any digital payment of more than ₹10,000, a mandatory pause of one hour should be imposed immediately before the completion of that transaction. Let us tell you that this delay will be applicable only at the level of the payer.

The main objective of bringing this rule is to strictly stop those cases where cyber fraudsters and fraudsters get innocent people transferred money to their accounts immediately by scaring, threatening or luring them under some pretext. In banking and technical language it is called ‘Authorized Push Payment’ (APP) fraud.

Banks say that this delay of one hour between payments will give full opportunity to the customers to think soberly and be careful whether the place or account to which they are sending money is correct or not. However, along with this, the banking giants have also made it clear that it should not be implemented blindly on all types of transactions. For example, if a customer is buying an expensive mobile phone or electronic item worth more than ₹10,000 from a shop, he would never want to stand near the shopkeeper and wait for the payment to be cleared for an entire hour. Therefore, it is very important to have flexibility in this new rule.

Approval of ‘trusted person’ will now be required for transactions involving the elderly

RBI has proposed another special and unique system to keep the money of the most sensitive section of the society i.e. the elderly and the disabled safe from cyber criminals. According to this proposal, mandatory approval of a ‘trusted person’ is required for any digital transaction of more than ₹ 50,000 made by senior citizens above 70 years of age and persons with disabilities.

Once this rule is implemented, the elderly will have to give an additional approval from their mobile or system before the payment is completed to a trusted person pre-defined in the bank. If for any reason this trusted person is changed, a mandatory cooling-off period of 24 hours will be in place, during which no major transactions will be allowed, to avoid any potential fraud or embezzlement.

Although banks have greatly appreciated this humane and protective thinking of RBI, they have also seen many big challenges in implementing it on the practical ground. Banks argue that if an elderly person is making a payment in a hospital or a diagnostic center in case of a serious emergency and his nominee (like a son or daughter) is not available at that time for some reason or his phone is switched off, then in such a situation even the genuine and extremely important payment will get delayed, which can become a major threat to one’s life.

Banks are faced with the challenge of infrastructure and huge expenditure.

To implement this new and complex security mechanism of RBI, all banks will have to make huge and fundamental changes in their existing digital payment infrastructure and software. For this, banks will have to create new transaction queues (queues), provide technical facilities to customers to cancel transactions during the cooling-off window and re-code the entire old settlement process. According to banking officials, implementing these new systems on servers will entail huge financial costs.

This concern becomes more serious for banks when they are already facing huge financial pressure and losses due to the zero-merchant discount rate (MDR) policy on UPI. As per current rules, banks are not allowed to charge merchants any fees for UPI transactions. Maintaining and continuously expanding India’s vast digital payments ecosystem requires a huge investment of around ₹10,000 crore annually, a large part of which is currently borne by the banks and payment service providers themselves.

India’s digital payment ecosystem today is unique and tops in the entire world in terms of its speed and scale. Before formulating this new security proposal, RBI has closely studied the global experiences and systems of developed countries like Britain, Singapore, Sweden, USA and Ireland. But Indian banks clearly say that these rules should be finalized keeping in mind the ground and social reality of India. At present, RBI has sought opinion from all parties and general public on this entire proposal and banks are hoping that while issuing the final guidelines, a complete balance will be struck between digital security as well as convenience of common customers.