As per the news reports published MTN’s Mobile Money Bank suffers N22B Fraud, Drags 18 Banks to court for recovery The newly licensed Mobile Money Payment Service Bank Limited (MOMO PSB) a banking subsidiary of MTN Communications Limited has in less than a month operation suffered a massive fraud worth over N22 billion on its network. The suspicious transfers were due to the fact that the MoMo PSB suffered system exploitation which led to the said debits.

The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), in its report, recorded 50,035 cybercrime cases in 2020, and it is alarming to see that the numbers have surged exponentially ever since the pandemic. This opened the gates to remote onboarding and the use of facial recognition algorithms to distinguish users’ unique features, enhancing their onboarding experience. On the flip side, this has also given scamsters and fraudsters ample opportunities to manipulate and employ technologies for wrongful gains.

Globally, the telecom service providers are under massive pressure to add new revenue streams because of the commoditization of voice and data services and dropping margins. In this regard, several service providers have started offering financial services to leverage their distributor network and existing relationship with the subscribers.

With the speed of technological advancements, one term is ubiquitous, Artificial Intelligence. Across various fields, AI is changing how we look at current technologies. One technology transformed with the implementation of AI is OCR, Optical Character Recognition. OCR can process images of text and convert them into a machine-readable format. It can take handwriting and printed documents and convert them into a digital format.

The Union Budget 2022 has been primarily focused on creating a digitally growing economy. The government has started prioritizing its expenditure on building a faster and more efficient environment for its consumers. The purpose of introducing virtual assets is to boost the digital economy. The introduction of legal regulations has now led the government to create a secure platform for these transactions to flow through effectively.

Concepts like AI-based video editing and augmented video processing are not just buzzwords anymore. Fraudsters now have easy access to plug-and-play products that enable them to use the power of deep learning and advanced AI to anonymize, mask, and alter images and videos. These spoofs also known as presentation attacks include printed photos, cutout masks, digital and video replay attacks, and 3D masks.

As India embraces the digital transformation and aligns with post pandemic lifestyle, working from home, shopping online, and managing money digitally has conveniently become a routine for us. This quick shift in the industry wouldn’t have been possible without quick regulatory advancements by government. Giving convenience a priority, critical functions like opening a bank account, lending a loan, large transactions, are now possible on fingertips.

The past two years have sure made everyone rethink and reimagine the way businesses must run. These years have been marked by resilience and reinvention. And, for many digital and digitally enabled startups, it’s been a year of remarkable growth. Almost all startups restructured their companies and significantly reduced costs. Many had to explore new distribution channels or new customer segments. Omnichannel consumer brands shifted completely online.

Cryptocurrency space is maturing, India’s appetite for cryptocurrency is evident, as the country facilitates the highest recipient of remittances globally — more than $83 billion since 2018 every year. With the support of cryptocurrencies, the remittance market is anticipated to soar in India, with cheaper, more efficient methods of sending money.

India ranks as one of the top two countries in the world in terms of digital adoption as per a McKinsey report. Over the last few years, initiatives such as Aadhaar, the national biometric digital identity program, have included over a billion Indians. India has also pioneered the United Payments Interface (UPI), a singular platform available as a mobile app that allows instant and cost-effective money transfer across people and businesses.