RBI for standardised e-payment systems

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is pushing for standardisation of all e-payment initiatives in the country to promote efficiency of the electronic payment systems in the long-run.

"The goal should be to allow products and services from different vendors to work together by means of inter-operable and seamless interfaces. This will allow for competition and reduce uncertainty in the market place and enhance easy acceptability," R B Barman, executive director, RBI, said at an Indian Banks' Association-Smart Cards Forum of India joint seminar on 'e-payments in retail banking'.

Even as the RBI is catalysing e-commerce and m-commerce, stimulating further migration of cash (bank notes and coins) to digital payment instruments, in order to increase the efficiency of payment systems, he felt that there is a need to define privacy rules since transaction trails could pose other risks to consumers.

While banks are increasingly developing internet banking applications for better customer service (no queues, no holidays, anytime/anywhere banking, pay electricity/ telephone/ credit card bills, insurance premium, check account status, transfer funds) and to cut operation cost, there is a critical concern on security when internet is used for business communication/ transaction.

"Security features need to be built into systems, application level as well as network level, with effective use of secure socket layer protocol, encryption/ decryption, digital signature, data integrity, etc," Barman said.

The introduction of e-payment products in India has brought a number of issues of regulatory and supervisory concern.