Launch of a standard icon collection by the Payments Council for uniformity and fraud prevention

APJ Finance.com

The Payments Council of India (PCI), the leading organization for the payments and settlement industry in the nation, has started a programme called "Project Pratima" to standardise payment icons across platforms and apps so that users may more easily recognise digital payment icons.

The PCI's executive director, Gaurav Chopra, told Moneycontrol that the organisation has started a drive to standardise the iconography for the most typical payment use cases. The major goal of this is to boost the adoption of digital payments while protecting people from fraud. Users will be assisted in correctly identifying payment actions by standardised icons.

Pratima is the Sanskrit word for "icon." According to the project's website, its goal is to increase customers' trust in, familiarity with, and security surrounding digital payment icons in order to reduce the likelihood that they would fall victim to fraud or make mistakes when making payments.

Different icons are being used by operators of digital payment application services and payment companies, according to the PCI website for Project Pratima. This may not be evident to new users or the uninitiated when it comes to the adoption of digital payments. Introducing a standardised collection of icons for fundamental payment activities and procedures is the goal of Project Pratima.

As Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions have increased significantly over the past year, so have fraud incidents. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently released data showing that 84,145 UPI fraud complaints were filed in the second quarter of 2022, or the period from April to June. From 18,864 complaints received in the second quarter of 2021, the number of complaints increased by 346 percent.

Volunteer designers from fintech companies FamPay, Setu, Jupiter, Amazon Pay, Safexpay, and Paytm make up the project's core team.

Executives from HDFC Bank, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), State Bank of India, Visa, Whatsapp Pay, PayU, Eko, Mobikwik, and Paytm are among the members of the working group who are from various banks and payment companies.

"Some of our members offered to allow their design teams to work with ours to create these symbols, which can then be widely used. All of our members and banks will soon be informed of the facts, and we will ask them to begin using these new icons," Chopra continued.