Author: Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Fawry Microfinance Released Tamweelak Mobile App

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Egyptian e-payments solutions company Fawry announced the release of the Tamweelak Fawry mobile app by its subsidiary Fawry Microfinance. Tamweelak Fawry, a digital loan request and tracking tool, enables existing micro and small businesses to apply for loans whenever and wherever it is most convenient, streamlining their financing process.

Another significant step toward Fawry Microfinance’s goal of digital transformation has been reached with the release of the Tamweelak Fawry app. The company’s commitment to increase financial inclusion in Egypt with the launch of the app is also fulfilled. This is done by providing loans for small businesses at affordable rates and using a sustainable strategy.

The simple registration and loan request processes offered by Tamweelak Fawry eliminate the need for time-consuming branch visits. Instead, customers can get loans and pay them back in a few simple steps. Users will also find explicit terms and conditions in the app’s product descriptions, which will increase service transparency. Additionally, the program provides a clever loan calculator to assist users in selecting the best option for their business needs. This flexible loan request process is made possible by the application’s ideal installment schedules. With these characteristics, the app becomes a vital resource for a significant portion of Egypt’s economic sector.

Several program features are made to reduce business risk and encourage sound financial management. The app helps to ensure that payments are always made on time by providing instant updates on the loan’s outstanding balance as well as automatic reminders for impending installments. The cybersecurity standards and multifactor authentication method used by Fawry make sure that only account owners may access their accounts. At the same time, the Company’s strict adherence to FRA rules ensures the highest level of protection for the user and financial data.

Alexander Levchenko, Chief Executive Officer, Fawry Microfinance, stated, “We are thrilled to introduce the Tamweelak Fawry app to the Egyptian market. The app marks yet another milestone in our efforts to create a digitalized platform for the market and drive financial inclusion by creating and distributing the most convenient financial tools. With Tamweelak Fawry, we’re one step closer to providing the benefits of accessible, fast, and secure financing for smaller projects in a way that guarantees maximum protection for businesses and individuals, while contributing to the social mission of achieving sustainable growth.”

Read: Codebase Technologies Offers Digibanc Platform to Capital Group

Enterprise Fraud Management Trends in Today’s World  

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Financial crime against banks and other financial institutions is rising in the digital age. Fraud prevention is a significant problem for the financial services industry and will likely drive IT spending in the future years. Forward-thinking banks are transitioning from isolated basic detection to enterprise predictive risk assessment, incorporating big data, advanced analytics, real-time functionality, and customer experience. Conventional fraud and compliance management practices—sampling, testing, and risk assessment without a detailed follow-up plan—may no longer fulfill the industry’s demands. Enterprise fraud management should be considered. EFM uses advanced analytic approaches to monitor the business and brand using vast volumes of operational and third-party data. EFM trends and technologies can help firms manage risk in the near term and boost business success in the long run.

Fraud Management Tools

Businesses utilize enterprise fraud management solutions to prevent the exploitation of their sensitive and invaluable data. Businesses can check and keep an eye on the transactional activity taking place within their organizations using enterprise fraud management solutions.

Enterprise fraud management tools available today are improved versions of the first generation of such tools, and they are more focused on managing all types of fraud that may occur within enterprises. Financial institutions are some of the instances of the most enterprise-oriented fraud management strategies.

Financial organizations might benefit the most from using enterprise fraud management solutions for security issues like cybercrime and other unforeseen defects. Businesses are deploying their fraud management systems more frequently because of the increased operational complexity brought on by the globalization of their industries.

Automation and digitalization make people more vulnerable to fraud and financial crime, and the number of online transactions and the size of the financial networks spanning many different countries only make risk and fraud management more challenging.

Trends in Fraud Management

Banks and other financial institutions must employ enterprise-wide predictive risk assessment frameworks rather than isolated fraud detection and prevention solutions. Here are some current trends that could influence fraud detection and prevention in the next generation:

  • Advanced Analytics and Data Exploitation

FIs can employ centralized data repositories to hold client accounts and transaction data from numerous channels, production systems, and external sources. Banks currently use high-performance computing technologies to evaluate substantial amounts of data in real-time and build in-depth client profiles. This results in the classification of the data that can be used for monitoring as well as investigations into fraud and money laundering.

  • Solutions for Detecting Fraud in Real Time

Financial fraud committed online must be caught quickly. To spot potential illegal conduct, financial institutions must deploy fraud solutions backed by machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and real-time transactional data analysis. For detecting fraud in real-time, banks are required to routinely examine both internal and external data in-depth. Finding underlying patterns and abnormalities in existing data is also done using entity analytics and graph visualization techniques.

  • Models for Predicting Fraud

Combining powerful predictive fraud models and analysis of enormous data sets can improve rule-based fraud detection. Analytical tools, such as pattern analysis to spot unusual behavior and link analysis to examine concealed frauds, are being utilized to increase the accuracy of models and enhance fraud detection.

  • Authentication Methods of the Future

Organizations may identify data anomalies in real-time and take prompt action by utilizing AI and ML technology. This gives them the ability to take initiative and prevent big losses. For instance, AI/ML methods can detect people on high-risk blacklists using facial recognition technology. While maintaining high consumer standards, businesses must confirm the identity of their customers. Fraud can be avoided with the aid of technologies like desktop analytics and voice and speech recognition. These next-generation enterprise fraud management solutions will provide a range of advantages, such as a lower total cost of ownership, increased employee productivity, and brand reputation protection. Enterprise fraud protection solutions that are future-proof are necessary for businesses to prevent loss of money and reputation since dishonest attackers will always develop more effective ways to commit fraud.

A Future Roadmap

Organizations require fraud protection solutions that are prepared for the future as part of their financial crime compliance program since fraudsters will constantly produce new ways to defraud. Functional simplicity, technological supremacy, and market potential are key features of these solutions. Banks must also make sure that internal controls are in place to prevent fraud while maintaining a positive client experience.

Companies can acquire high-value risk insights by adopting an updated strategy to identify and prevent risk across the modern digital enterprise and by utilizing tools that may already be in use somewhere in the company. These insights can then be applied to significantly enhance tactical and strategic decision-making. No business should continue in the digital age with an analog anti-fraud approach. EFM can be the crucial shift that is required by the new business realities.

To find the best partner for financial fraud and risk management programs, banks must implement an evaluation methodology that weighs vendor demos against operational, domain, and technological requirements.

Read: What are the Features of Enterprise Fraud Management?

Need of Cybersecurity in Digital Banking  

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Cybersecurity has always been a major concern since the advancements in the digital world have become popular. Since everything has become digital this has made a few realizations that not everything online is safe, there are a lot more threats online than there were traditional.

With the rise of the internet, cybersecurity has always been a major concern. Due to the widespread adoption of electronic communication methods, consumers have realized that digital activities do not provide comprehensive digital security to avoid cyber threats.

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is the activity of defending digital systems and devices from malicious attackers. It has grown in importance for financial institutions that focus on providing their services online to safeguard their customers’ assets and online financial transactions. Attackers may leverage even the smallest breach to identify a vulnerability in the organization’s systems, severely harming users’, and digital banks’ important data. A strategy aligned with procedures enables digital banks to guarantee the security of the sensitive data kept in their systems, preventing severe financial damage to their consumers, and ensuring a reliable reputation among stakeholders.

Why Cybersecurity is necessary for Digital Banking?

Digitization has had a significant impact on banking technology, which has resulted in several challenges. Cybersecurity threats are a major one. Daily, Financial Institutes process millions of transactions. Therefore, financial services providers like banks, credit card companies, credit unions, and investment firms must implement preventative security measures to protect their data from cyberattacks.

A successful digital revolution depends on the use of data-protection techniques and practices. Banking activities relies on trust and credibility; thus, it’s the cybersecurity is even more critical.

Everyone is going cashless, utilizing debit and credit cards. In this scenario, it’s crucial to implement cybersecurity safeguards to secure the customers’ data and privacy. Data leaks make financial institutions untrustworthy and that’s a concern for banks. Weak cybersecurity can lead to data breaches that drive customers away. When bank data is breached, customers lose time and money, and the recovery activity which includes canceling cards and examining statements is very time-consuming. Even if the cards are canceled, and fraud is stopped, customer data is sensitive and could be exploited against customers. That’s why banks, more than any other firm, need to be on their guard more than most other financial institutes.

 Cyberthreats for financial institutions in digital banking

  • Identity Theft

Since it is so simple to steal someone’s online footprint, there has been a high incidence of identity thefts throughout time. As an illustration, people who have stolen credit cards will be capable of making transactions online, while they won’t be able to make them in person due to security measures put in place by MasterCard, Europay, and Visa (EMV). Cyber attackers can steal identities with or without a credit card. Attackers may intrude on financial firms’ databases to take consumer account information. In other words, thieves won’t need to interact personally with the victims to steal their identities.

  • Malware

Computers and mobile devices, which are end-to-end customer appliances and are frequently used for online payments, should be protected. If it is connected to malware, connecting to your system could put the bank’s cyber security in danger. This network carries sensitive information, and if a user’s device has malware installed on it, that virus might pose a major threat to the bank’s network in the absence of adequate security.

  • Data Manipulation

One common misconception regarding cyber-attacks is that they exclusively concern themselves with data theft. However, given that data manipulation assaults have increasingly increased in popularity as a technique of attack for hackers, this is not always the case. Attacks involving data manipulation occur when a risky actor acquires access to an objective system and modifies data covertly for their gain. An illustration of this would be if a worker changed client information. This will probably go unnoticed because the transactions will seem legitimate, which will cause mistakes in the way that data is stored going forward. The more damage the manipulation does, the longer it remains unnoticed.

Cybersecurity Framework

Cyber security framework for banks varies based on the individual demands and threats of each bank. It’s important to note that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced a Cybersecurity Framework for banks, as has the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

For the most part, banks should search for a comprehensive and adaptable cyber security framework to customize it to their risks and requirements. As threats and vulnerabilities evolve, the framework should be adjusted accordingly.

More new advancements and innovations are being created in the field of cyber security because of increased understanding, investments, and progress in technology. Financial institutions can protect their data from hackers thanks to developments in technology and emerging cybersecurity trends.

In the next blog, we’ll look at the most popular developments/trends in cyber security.

 Read: Digital Banking Platforms-A New and Rising Trend in Industry

Cross Border Payment- How It Started & How It would be Going

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Years ago, people used to do money transfers from one country to another in one of three ways- carrying physical cash across borders, utilizing couriers or acquaintances to move money on their behalf, or taking the service of informal trust-based broker networks. These methods happened to be unreliable, inefficient, full of risk, and undoubtedly expensive. It took almost a century before significant advances enabled efficient cross-border payments on a global scale.

The Advancement of Communication Network and Messaging Standards 

Telex network, the earliest method of cross-border settlement, was developed in early 1930 by the German postal service. The network used teleprinters that enabled the electronic transfer of written messages. Banks used this network to communicate with their counterparts for payment settlement. Very soon, Telex became a primary source to facilitate international money transfers in the developed world until the 1970s.

1973 was the year when 239 banks from 15 countries joined forces to develop a better cross-border payment medium and named it Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Belgium-based SWIFT developed a common language and model for global payments, which, since then, has been serving as the default network for cross-border transaction communication. Currently, SWIFT is used by over 11 000 financial institutions throughout 200+ countries globally.

The Development of Correspondent Banking Relationships 

However, communication networks alone were not able to solve other requirements for making trusted cross-border transactions- a way to transfer money between two different financial institutions. As currencies are closed-loop systems, banks have no option to move funds from a domestic payment system in one country to another. As a result, financial institutions introduced a new funding mechanism to solve this challenge- Correspondent Banking.

How does Correspondent Banking Work?

If Bank A in one country transfers money to Bank D in another, each bank has to hold an account with its counterpart. When it comes to international payment, there is no physical movement of funds. In fact, banking users credit accounts in one jurisdiction and debit that amount in the other. Here an issue arises when banks have to process the international transaction to all countries and all banks internationally. For this, they either have to establish their own bank branches across all countries wherever they want to make payments or build thousands of direct relationships in other countries. Pursuing such huge accomplishments wasn’t possible for every bank, and even a few world’s top international banks achieved this, but with immense struggle and many challenges.

Banks experienced impracticalities, as they often needed to pay through their intermediaries, also known as correspondent banks. In some cases, more than one intermediary or correspondent bank can be included in the payment process, majorly when money has to be moved to and from emerging markets. But with the increase in the number of correspondents in the chain, the costs and the transaction time increase too.

The combination of the correspondent banking relationships and the SWIFT communication network has been the most used method for money movement across borders for the last 4 decades. This is the reason why banks still capture over 80-90% of borderless revenue. However, it remains good for bulk amount transactions, but the model isn’t economical or suits lower value transactions. Therefore, there is an influx of non-bank or third-party financial services providers, which are extremely focusing on bigger inroads to focus on the rising SME and consumer markets.

Future of Cross-Border Payments 

SWIFT GPI – Recently, SWIFT has improved its service by implementing its Global Payments Initiative (GPI), which allows banks to give details of payment status, deductions, and confirmations to a tracker hosted on the Global Payments Initiative cloud which end-users and banks can access to find payment status and other information.

Payment Network Aggregators – These aggregators operate payments networks that traditionally rely on an indirect network connection. Alike correspondent banks, they build third-party relationships to enter markets where they don’t want to establish their connections. This enables them to easily scale and provide a wide array of solutions as they aggregate multiple partners’ individual connections. But indirect connections expose payment network aggregators and charge ongoing fees to various risks associated with every partner and give restricted visibility of fund flows.

Cross-border payments are more in number than ever, thanks to the best minds and the use of evolving technologies in this sector. There won’t be a surprise if we see more players and consumers making it widespread.

Read: Skaleet Partners with Thunes for Cross Border Payment Expansion

Open Banking Introduces New Dimensions of Banking Services

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Banking system has tremendously changed in the last decade, and in yesteryears, personal and professional details of account holders were not more than archives. But, with new services evolving in the financial world, things have taken a new form, and those details are considered as data, one of the strongest contemporary resources to drive traditional-turned digital banking to the next level.

Open banking is one of trending digital banking practices where banks and other financial service providers open data for regulated providers to retrieve, use, and share.

Data of customers given to third parties, you got worried, right?

Data sharing has been controversial as financial services users are being more aware of data use, access, and capitalization practices. They now put their concerns forward to their respective financial institutions, be it bank, lending services or others.  Modern-day banking users have more digital literacy at least when it comes to the use of data, but a big fat question is, “is this literacy enough to understand evolving banking practices or they would still doubt open banking where data sharing is a prominent aspect?”.

To resolve these confusions or financial literacy issues, why not to understand “Open Banking” in a deeper way than ever.

First of all, data sharing or its use by third-party institution is not unsafe as it seems because banks are efficiently putting in place their infrastructure for data of their customers to be shared more easily with third parties, when the customer agrees to do so. For instance, Yapily Connect is a feature that unlocks the potential of Open Banking.

The last part is equally important. Open Banking isn’t some ruse to allow banks to sell data of their customers more easily. The purpose is completely opposite- open banking was brought to improve financial services for customers. And by opening to data, they’ve kept in-house, it enables new financial institutions and new products to come to market, and use the data in innovative, and helpful ways.

So, does the story of Open Banking end here, no, it begins here.

Open Banking brings an ecosystem for data employment, where it helps all parties involved in the process-

For financial services providers– At the top of the chain, it will enable these providers to aptly innovate on their products as per evolving demands. Open banking will allow them to establish themselves in a more competitive way.

For large and small businesses– Those innovations done on product offerings done by financial services providers will mean more efficient and useful financial tools in small and large businesses- payments. It will resolve issues of automation, freeing up time, reducing the headaches of doing tasks manually, and the last but not the least, saving money.

For consumers– it will allow consumers to spend, borrow, or invest thoughtfully.

Open Banking has reshaped the financial service infrastructure, and thus allowing digital economies to expand exponentially. Its impact is not limited to one or a few countries, in fact, we can see such kind of services across the world, majorly in the UK. London is turning out into a major spot for open banking organizations facilitating consumers with innovative financial products almost every day. The offerings of open banking have been remarkable and look promising keeping the future needs of banking consumers.

Read: Tink Partners with Revolut for Open Banking Services in Europe

Neobanks Transforming the Banking Industry Experience

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Banking is a traditional concept, although time-consuming and frustrating due to the inefficiency they work with. Non-satisfactory services of banks have made them lose their value along with the recent trends the banks couldn’t adapt to the new parameters which have caused poor customer experience.

If we travel back in time a bit, hypothetically, we might come across the extremely long queues which might take your entire day to just get one simple task done like updating the passbook or making a deposit. Apart from this, the complicated bank forms are supposed to be filled out every time you need to get anything done in your bank.

Nowadays if we have a look at the market, we can observe a new trend going on which is going online for every sector. We have seen many transactions in the digital era in the last few years as we are stepping into the future starting from online restaurants, online shopping, meetings, lectures, and even online exams. Almost all sectors are moving online and have become a trend in the market these days, to shift things online.

This transition has made life easier at some level, however, there are still a few sectors that if shifted online will be of great ease for customers. If we do a bit of time travel and analyze the scenario of the banking sector, we might come to see the problem with the traditional banking system. Standing in long queues for one simple task, waiting for hours, and devoting one entire day of the week if you need to get something done in the bank. Yes, it is an extremely tiring and time-consuming process.

Although digital banking has tried to solve a few issues, it came with its cons which consist of digital fraud and money laundering activities as well. Digital banking tried to solve the issues of traditional banking but couldn’t perform as well as expected and has its limitations. It came with a solution of mobile applications to make banking easy but still it was pretty much dependent on traditional banking which was a big limitation for this solution.

The most recent advancement which can be said to have contributed to the banking sector is Neobanks. These are financial institutions that offer online-only banking services, just like a traditional bank. Neobanks have no physical branches to visit and have their entire working process made online. They provide all the financial services that a traditional bank does.

From the opening, a bank checking or savings account to making funds transactions and other financial educational tools such as budgeting help, there is nothing that Neobanks cannot provide.  They offer mobile applications to manage transactions and financial services.

Although Neobanks have similarities with traditional banking, they are still different from each other in their offerings and structures which are different from other credit unions, they are not commissioned by state or global regulatory bodies as banks, and they offer streamlined banking services through their mobile apps.

Neobanks offers an astonishing feature to its customers to link their traditional bank accounts and leverage both forms of banking services. In a way, Neobanks is an upcoming trend in the market that might transform the entire banking experience for customers and organizations as well, and altogether provide a new definition of banking services for the entire population. Understanding that there are a few reservations about this concept in the market as of now, however with time they might resolve, this can still be said to be the beginning of a new banking era.

Read: Qolo and MX Collaborated to Aid Neobanks and FinTechs Grow

Banking as a Service- Extended Arms of Traditional Banking

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Those days won’t have erased from your memory when you had to walk in-person to the nearest branch of your bank to access desired financial services. Weren’t they time-consuming and full of struggles?

Around a decade or a little more, traditional banking services were limited to their premises or certain locations only, and certainly those were offering painful experiences even if someone had to access personal banking details. Do you remember when updates in your passbook was only possible by visiting a branch, else you can’t archive your expense management? Similarly, withdrawing money was only possible when you visit your bank and meet the executive after standing several hours in the queue.

Certainly, at that time financial services landscape was incompetent, inconvenient, and full of miseries, but uncontrollable for consumers too. Customers had to spend endless hours in accomplishing their financial objectives. Bank representatives were not so welcoming inside the premise, and delivery of banking services to every single door used to look beyond imagination. Even after banking got digitalized, there was partial comfort to consumers as they had to visit banking premises at least occasionally.

This was a time when banking-as-a-service (BaaS) evolved to ensure consumers access banking services at their places and in their comfort zone. It enabled consumers to enjoy banking capabilities through extended hands. Meanwhile learning about BaaS in a more explanatory way would allow you to understand its types and uses convincingly.

What is Banking-as-a-Service?

Banking-as-a-Service, also called white-label banking is a system in which non-banking or non-financial institutions can embed financial services into their products. This definition would become easy to understand with a little more elaboration through this example- you may have seen companies that are not banks but offer payment services or loans to consumers by embedding digital banking into their systems. These companies are called BaaS providers, though banks can themselves create such platforms or work along with third-party financial services providers offering BaaS solutions.

Diving deep in the BaaS world, here are some more examples that are ready to teach you to a greater extent about it-

In some cases, BaaS acts as a backbone for financial app development. Betterment, a popular investing app is such banking-as-a-Service product.

Delivery of remittance is a great help to poor countries as it acts as a major source of income for them. The development of remittance software is a classic example of BaaS as banks become able to render their services with their partner financial institutions without any obligations.

Similarly, mortgage and money lending are two essential services in banking, and often collaborate with third-party financial institutions to reach a broader audience base. Banking-as-a-Service enables the development of mortgage software and money lending apps.

All these services are implemented by a third party and provided and supported by a bank. Banking as a Service adding more wings to the existing digital financial services and allowing licensed banks to expand their customer base. The association of third party and banking organizations will surely bring more new useful services to make banking capabilities more enjoyable for customers. The disruption in the financial services sector will come to an end, and transparency & reach to banking capabilities will increase on the go.

Read: Embedded Finance: A New Concept in Financial Industry

FinTech-as-a-Service (FaaS)- Rising Trend in Finance

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

As a recent trend, a large population has been diverted towards stocks and blockchain trading, NFTs, and other things such as Metaverse. People know little about these platforms and services, and the interest can be seen increasing day by day, giving rise to curiosity for divisions such as FinTechs to gain popularity.

Not only customers, but organizations, are also keen to learn about this sector’s possibilities and future opportunities and can be seen investing heavily in any organization providing financial services. The recent trading and investing practices have hyped up this sector quite a lot and made it necessary for all to know about this.

FinTech, or financial technology, words that we have been reading and listening to a lot these days in the market. These words carry a lot of burden and significance in them, and not just in terms of trading or investing but much more. Financial services are such services that each one of us has been using whether we know about it or not. Starting from credit or debit cards to online payments, these things have been experienced by all, these are a part of financial services provided by financial institutions as their services or applications in the market. Organizations have developed their payment interfaces using the APIs and have been implementing the same in their channel.

But as the market has evolved, the need for better and more easy banking or financial services was required, and this requirement has been fulfilled by FinTech. Financial technology organizations are a fusion of both technology and financial services, this includes modern APIs, automation process of banking and lending services, investing, digital payments, insurances, and wealth management.

The FinTech-as-a-Service (FaaS) platform enables an organization to streamline its end-to-end process, maintaining an appropriate implementation of a financial service delivered throughout the Internet within a set timeline. FaaS solutions make provision for entire delivery environment management and deployment. They also assure legal compliance with banking standards, as well as appropriate security techniques such as robust verification.

Both traditional financial and non-financial organizations are implementing the FaaS as it streamlines financial processes, eradicates inefficient documentation, and reduces the need for user intervention. Robotic automation liberates time for additional duties which results in streamlined workflows, thorough document analysis, and delivering findings quickly. Companies have drastically shortened the time it takes to complete the entire financial transaction and improve the customer experience by adopting FaaS.

Considering the digitalization and the automation in the banking and financial sector, the fintech services have also been automated to match the needs of the customers and organizations. These all factors have contributed to the popularity of this sector and the attention it has received. However, FaaS doesn’t stop here only, it has so much more to offer and many other opportunities, few explored, and few not explored yet.

Read: Embedded Finance: A New Concept in Financial Industry

Measures for a Safe and Secure Digital Banking Experience

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

In the last blog of this series, we established the difference between online and digital banking, now moving forward in this blog we will cover the measures of a safe and secure digital banking experience. The discussion will cover the aspects from both clients’ as well as customers’ perspectives.

We all would agree on one thing this new era of digitization has its perks along with some threats, and these threats at times can be targeted towards our hard-earned money leading to a difficult situation of survival. Ensuring that while you make any online/digital payment, it was secure is a necessity for all in this modern time.

While making any online payment or transaction, you wouldn’t want that one single mouse click or lack of attention costs you thousands or in some cases more. The advancement of technology has unlocked a different level of experience in major sectors with its applicability and banking has been one of those. However, there is always a level of risk associated with it which we often ignore. For a secure and seamless digital banking experience here are a few points to be considered:

Starting from the first and foremost point-

  • Don’t share account details

Although this sounds like a very basic point to never share the card and account details, and most people know about it as well, even after that there come incidents where scams happen and people are robbed of their hard-earned money because at some point they have provided their account and card details via entering that information on a non-trusted or secure website or have shared on a call to some person impersonating to be a bank official.

What we can do about this, is that make sure that the account and card details are never shared with anyone, not even on chats (WhatsApp or other channels) as there are high chances of data being stolen from these platforms. The next step is never to save your card or account details on any of the websites or applications while making any digital transaction

  • Device protection

Your device says a lot about protecting and securing your data and information. While making any kind of digital transaction. In case you have lost your devices (smartphones, tablets, or laptops), the probability of your data theft is higher, in a situation like this your personally identifiable information (PII) can be leaked and used for some unethical purposes.

Always make sure that your devices are locked using biometrics (fingerprint or face scan), patterns, or pins. This increases the chances of accessing your device data impossible for the person trying to steal it. Apart from that use the feature from Google such as find my device to locate your device in case of loss or theft.

  • KYC documents

During the KYC process, all the documents submitted by you provide almost all information about an individual and make it easier for hackers to get into the system and steal the information. There is not much that can be done from the customer’s side, but an organization can make sure that this kind of sensitive information is not getting leaked on any platform or is being put into use for any other purpose.

What a customer can do is make sure that the organization is not using your data anywhere by signing the copy of documents while submission and mentioning the purpose of the documents being shared in a self-attested copy. This activity can ensure that your details and documents are not being used for any kind of fraudulent activity such as the opening of fake bank accounts for money laundering activities.

  • Firewalls

The basic function of the firewall is to filter all the data transacting from your system and remove the unwanted and block the traffic from unsecured sources on your system. This protects your device from being prone to theft or any other threat.

Having an updated firewall is now a must for any customer irrespective of the vendor they have, this is one such thing that makes the most difference while making a secure digital banking experience.

  • Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Encryption

When you log in, fill out an application, register for services, and so on, SSL encryption establishes a secure connection with your browser. And, despite the complexity of the technology, ensuring that SSL encryption is active on the page you’re using is simple. Simply look for the lock symbol in the lower right corner of the page or “https://” at the start of the URL/web address.

  • Cookies

Banks can detect or verify your system when you log in to your account again by storing a cookie (a bit of text kept on a user’s computer by their web browser) on your system once you have logged in. If you log in to your account on a different computer or delete your cookies, you’ll have to input additional information the next time you log in.

Once we have kept all these points in mind while making any digital transaction, it would be impossible for any kind of fraudulent activity to take place. It has been said that ignorance is bliss, but in this situation, ignorance can cost you a lot and won’t turn out to be bliss. You need to be attentive all the time and if there is any suspicion of any fraudulent activity taking place, report it to the officials and try to change your credentials and take other measures.

 

Read: Digital Banking and Online Banking- Same or Different

Digital Banking Platforms-A New and Rising Trend in Industry

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL): What it Means in FinTech?

Posted on by Associate Editor, Surbhi Malik

Living in a world of dependency on the salary is monotonous but also becoming a new normal for this generation. Making all the decisions on needs, requirements, and wish based on the amount of salary is gloomy and demotivating as well. The wish list of this generation is being limited due to the paychecks and is building up a level of stress among all.

With the pandemic situation coming into the frame, this dependency has grown strong as the global economy suffered huge losses during this time and still hasn’t recovered completely. But this doesn’t justify the limitations to living life off paychecks only and not wanting to live a few dreams and tick a few things off the wish list.

The consumer is suffering and requires a better solution, and with the evolution of fintech, such a solution has been in expectation for a long time. One solution had come across as Credit Cards which worked out quite well for a while but with the changing needs, this also needed to change.

Among these circumstances, a new solution has gained the limelight of the fintech world, and this solution is called Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). Although the name itself drops a few hints just to clarify, BNPL services allow the user to buy now and pay for it after some time.

BNPL is short-term financing that offers its users the liberty to make purchases and make payments in the future with little or no interest on the amount. However, there are a few terms to this as well which might somewhat sound similar to those of the credit cards but are different in their ways. BNPL is also referred to as ‘point of sale installment loans’, as it is a kind of loan given to the customer.

There must be a few ideas going in your mind, but bring them to a halt, BNPL doesn’t provide things for free, instead, when you purchase something from an online or offline store while making the payment select the BNPL option and pay a small down payment of the entire payment and rest amount is paid in small easy installments with a little or no interest.

BNPL has recently gained some attention in the post-covid era as the global economy has been facing a hard time and now various BNPL service providers can be seen in the market. Some of them are ZestMoney, LazyPay, Slice, even e-commerce giant Amazon has also introduced its Amazon pay later option as a part of the ongoing BNPL service trend.

These services have worked to reduce the friction in the industry and have helped the SMEs significantly and have worked as a ray of hope for the startups. BNPL is becoming popular among the younger generation (Gen-Z) as their trust in the traditional banking systems is not much. And this option has provided them an alternative banking option along with providing them flexibility for payments while offering them total control over their finances.

All these factors together have contributed to the success and popularity of the BNPL service platforms and have made them available as an alternative payment solution for all.  BNPL is becoming a vast and spreading area to talk about and discuss and is not possible to include all its aspects here only, other aspects of this topic will be discussed in the upcoming blogs.

 

Read: Credit Key Joined Hands with Miva to Offer its BNPL Services

 

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