Mobile chipset manufacturer Qualcomm on Tuesday said that no mobile payments application being used by consumers in India was completely secure, PTI reported. Senior Director for product management S Choudhury said that the lack of of support for hardware-level encryption could allow for user login details and data to be stolen.
“Most of the banking or wallet apps around the world don’t use hardware security,” Choudhury said. “They actually run completely in Android mode and [a] user’s password can be stolen,” he said, adding that a user did not know if a mobile banking app they were using was utilising hardware-based security or not.
Qualcomm was approaching digital payments companies to urge them to use a secure environment for promopayments through phones, the company executive said. The Centre has been promoting and incentivising the use of digital payment methods following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the step to discontinue the high-value currency was taken to fight black money, corruption and the circulation of counterfeit currency in the country.
Mobile payment apps such as Paytm and Freecharge have been among the biggest beneficiaries of this push. However, these companies and their mobile products have come under scrutiny by security analysts and industry professionals. On November 24, Paytm discontinued its app-based point-of-sale feature for merchants one day after its launch on data security concerns. The feature was criticised for allowing customers to enter their card details on a merchant’s phone, allowing potential thefts of their data.
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