PCI Launches ‘Project Pratima’ To Standardise Payment Icons For Online Fraud Prevention

The Payments Council of India (PCI) has launched an initiative named ‘Project Pratima’ to standardise payment icons across applications and platforms with an aim to reduce the cases of online payments fraud.

The objective behind the project is to make it easier for customers to identify digital payment icons by standardising them and bringing uniformity.

“It is a project which PCI has undertaken to standardise icons of most common use cases in payments. The main idea behind this is to safeguard people against fraud and increase adoption of digital payments. Standardised icons will help users identify payments actions correctly,” Gaurav Chopra, executive director of PCI, told Moneycontrol.

The PCI represents over 85% of the non-bank companies in the country’s payments ecosystem. 

With the launch of ‘Project Pratima’, the industry body aims to improve security, trust and familiarity with digital payment icons and also prevent customers from getting duped while making online payment transactions.

The core team working on the project reportedly includes designers from FamPay, Setu, Jupiter, Amazon Pay, Safexpay and Paytm. Besides, designers and user interface executives of banks and payment firms including HDFC Bank, NPCI, State Bank of India, Visa, Whatsapp Pay, PayU, Eko and Mobikwik are also a part of the core team. 

The rise in internet and smartphone penetration in the country over the last few years has led to a surge in digital payments. However, the cases of digital payments fraud, including UPI, have also risen exponentially.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently said that 1,46,495 UPI-related fraudulent activities were reported by the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) during the first two quarters of 2022. 

The ministry also stated that UPI-related frauds increased by 34% as compared to other cybercrimes such as frauds related to debit and credit cards, and online banking during Q1 and Q2 2022. 

To control cyber threats and phishing attacks, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)  recently formed a joint committee with officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The committee aims to address the problems related to unsolicited commercial communication (UCC).