India needs proper legal framework to check e-frauds: CMAI

The Dollar Business Bureau

CMAI Association of India (CMAI), which represents companies across ICT, telecom, and cyber security segments, said on Wednesday that the country needs separate laws and courts for digital payment issues together with an ‘appropriate legal framework’, as the digital payments witnessed a manifold growth after demonetisation.

CMAI said there is a need for an appropriate legal framework to protect the consumers in case they lose their money in digital transactions.

NK Goyal, President of CMAI, said, “As of now, India does not have appropriate laws in this regard. The only solution available is under the Information Technology (IT) Act 2000, which mainly deals with cyber thefts. All the cases of losing money during digital payments may not come under the category of cyber breaches/thefts.

With digital payments proliferations across the country in big as well as small cities, there may be cases of small incidents here and there. To address these issues in timely manner, we request that there is a need for separate laws and courts on digital payment across India,” he added.

CMAI also prodded the government to encourage manufacturing of PoS (point-of-sale) machines and their software development in the country.

“As per government reports, in the coming few months around 20 lakhs new PoS machines will be added to existing 15 lakhs machines. When millions of people are adding to the digital payments movement per day, safety and security of data remains vital and that can be ensured only by pushing domestic manufacturing of PoS machines,” Goyal said.

Pointing out that digital transactions have jumped up 300% post demonetisation, he said, “If we want to make cashless economy, we cannot depend on international manufacturers.”

Currently, most of the PoS machines in India are imported from Europe, US and China.