RBI announces exclusive internet domain ‘bank.in’ for Indian banks to counter cyber threats
Mumbai : With a view to secure digital financial services from cyber threats, the RBI has proposed several measures including exclusive internet domain ‘bank.in’ ( bank dot in) for Indian banks. Registration of this domain name will commence from April this year. This will help avoid banking frauds. This will be followed by the ‘fin.in’ domain for the financial sector.
The RBI has also proposed to extend Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA) to online international digital payments made to offshore merchants, who are enabled for such authentication. The AFA has already been implemented for domestic digital payments.
Announcing these measures RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said, “Banks and NBFCs must continuously improve preventive and detective controls to mitigate cyber risks. They must develop robust incident response and recovery mechanisms, reinforced through periodic testing, for operational resilience”.
Enabling Additional Factor of authentication in cross-border Card Not Present transactions
Introduction of Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA) for digital payments has enhanced the safety of transactions which, in turn, provided confidence to customers to adopt digital payments. This requirement, however, is mandatory for domestic transactions only.
In order to provide a similar level of safety for online international transactions using cards issued in India, it is proposed to enable AFA for international card not present (online) transactions as well. This will provide an additional layer of security in cases where the overseas merchant is enabled for AFA. Draft circular will be issued shortly for feedback from stakeholders.
Introduction of forward contracts in Government Securities
Third, over the past few years, we have expanded the suite of interest rate derivative products available to market participants to manage their interest rate risks. We shall now include forward contracts in Government securities to this suite. This would facilitate long-term investors such as insurance funds to manage their interest rate risk across interest rate cycles. It will also enable efficient pricing of derivatives that use Government securities as underlying instruments.