India has a rich diversity of digital payment options. Due to steps taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to encourage electronic transactions, paper-based systems (cheque, demand draft, banker's cheque, payment order, traveller's cheque, interest warrant, dividend warrants, and money order) now constitute a miniscule portion of retail payments. The number of clearing houses has also declined. Card-based electronic payment systems are well-understood at the global and national level, and find acceptance at stores, as well as for online payments. Cards are usually issued by banks and can be classified on the basis of their issuance, usage, and payment by the card holder. There are three types of cards: (a) pre-paid cards, (b) debit cards and (c) credit cards. In recent years, non-card electronic payment systems have become very popular. These have, inter alia, included: (a) real time gross settlement (RTGS), (b) national electronic funds transfer (NEFT), (c) electronic clearing services (ECS), (d) immediate payment services (IMPS), (e) unified payments interface (UPI), (f) unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), (g) Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS), and (h) Bharat interface for money (BHIM). Cyber space is vulnerable to a wide variety of incidents, whether intentional or accidental, man-made or natural, and the data exchanged in the cyber space can be exploited for nefarious purposes by both nation-states and non-state actors. Cyber attacks and threats are faced by individuals, businesses, and governments. These can take the following forms: (a) phishing, (b) hacking, (c) scamming, (d) sniffing, (e) spoofing, and (f) denial of service attack. The only way to protect ourselves from such activities is to be vigilant about our data and protect the data from getting into the hands of scamsters and fraudsters. This book is an informative and descriptive document on the subject of digital banking and cyber security concerns.
About the Author: Dr. Sarika R. Lohana is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, State Bank Institute of Leadership, Kolkata. Her key areas of responsibility include research, external consultancy, content design, and rollout of executive development programmes. She has around 13 years of teaching and research experience and has worked in various capacities including Assistant Professor and Assistant Director (Training and Placements). She is the recipient of UGC-Dr. Radhakrishnan Post-doctoral Fellowship, New Delhi and completed her M.Com. from SRTM University, Nanded; M.Phil. in commerce from Alaggappa University, Karaikudi; Ph.D. from the School of Commerce and Management Sciences, SRTM University; and MBA in finance from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. Besides, she has authored three books, the recent one being annotated by Journal of Economic Literature of Economic Association of America and reviewed by the Prime Minister of India. She is a member of WASET, USA and has case study publications in The Case Centre, UK and in ABDC Journals. Her areas of research include finance, consumer behaviour, entrepreneurship, banking, corporate finance, machine learning, cyber security, and neuro and behavioural finance. She was nominated by NITI Aayog as a subject expert for content development for the course, "Understanding Digital Payments". She has also worked as an adjunct faculty at IIIT, Kottayam. She has completed certification in Corporate Finance from IESE Business School, Spain; Sustainability through Digital Transformation from SAP, Germany; and High Availability and Disaster Recovery with the SAP HANA Platform from SAP, Germany. She has co-chaired technical sessions and presented her research papers in national and international conferences. She is also the guest editor for reputed international journals.