Airtel adds extra safety layer to online payment

Released: Court

With the fear of online fraud keeping away a large chunk of Indians from digital payments, Bharti Airtel has come up with an additional authentication layer to secure transactions of its payment bank customers. The feature called Safe Pay is available only for Airtel Payments Bank customers who use the Airtel mobile network.

"The Airtel SafePay uses an additional 'third-factor authentication to process the customer's payment transaction. Currently, all banks and e-wallets have only two-factor authentication as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India," Anubrata Biswas, MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank told this newspaper.

The Safe Pay feature was launched in January. In around 30 days, Biswas said the bank has got 2.5 lakh customers using the Safe Pay feature. He expects one crore people to use this security feature in a couple of years.

Post-Covid pandemic, digital payments have increased manifold in the country. The data provided by the National Payments Corporation of India shows that in February, transactions based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) hit a volume of over 229.29 crore, which 96 crore more in volume recorded in February last year. The total transaction value over one year increased from Rs 2.22 lakh crore in February 2020 to Rs 4.25 lakh crore in February 2021.

However, a study conducted by UK-based market research firm YouGov revealed that nearly half of the Indian consumers are concerned about digital payments fraud.

Barcelona: Former Barcelona

president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his former advisor Jaume Masferrer were released on Tuesday after appearing before a judge investigating last year’s ‘Barcagate’ scandal, a Spanish court said. The two men, who were arrested on Monday, “exercised their

right not to speak”, and the judge granted them conditional release while the investigation continues, the Barcelona court

said in a statement. The court said the judge had

sought to question them as part of an investigation opened in May 2020 into the suspected crimes of false administration

and business corruption. Two other club officials also detained as part of the operation which involved a search of

Barcelona’s stadium — the club’s current chief executive Oscar Grau and its head of legal services Roma Gomez Ponti — were released late on

Monday.