Government to introduce guidelines for digital payments to protect consumers

The Ministry of IT and Electronics (MEITY) is working on detailed guidelines on digital payments to ensure protection of consumers. “MEITY is working on comprehensive guidelines for digital payments to protect consumers. It will also look at making merchants and vendors involved in digital payment ecosystem act with responsibility,” an official source told . At present, there are no specific guidelines on digital payments and no regulator to ensure fair play in the segment. “There are general rules under which liability can be fixed on stakeholders within digital payments but nothing specific to digital payments. There are various factors being looked at including service quality and grievance redressal under single framework,” the source said. Government has been pushing digital payments to curb flow of blackmoney and fake currency. Various modes of digital payments have seen increase in the range of 400 to 1000 per cent after the government announced ban on old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The digital payment platforms are governed by rules notified by the Reserve Bank of India, IT Act and other related laws. However, like banking, insurance, telecom etc, the digital payments segment has no mechanism for consumer grievance redressal or ombudsman. The source said the guidelines are likely to be framed using existing rules for which a detailed study is being conducted by MEITY. “The draft may be placed on MEITY website for public comments soon,” the source added. PTI