Digital Payment Abhiyan is reaching out to all corners of spreading awareness on the safety and security aspects of Digital Payments

February 11, New Delhi: Digital Payment Abhiyan – a multilingual pan India campaign by Data Security Council of India (DSCI), in collaboration with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Google India, spreading awareness on the safety and security aspects of Digital Payments – has reached out to 25 million individuals till date. The campaign has been rightfully reaching out to citizens from Tier II & Tier III cities as well as the urban population. Some of the locations with maximum outreach impact, as of now, remains Patna, Lucknow, Indore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai and Ahmedabad. Users across all age groups have been touched upon by the awareness campaign with 60% of the users being in the age group of 18-35 and gender participation has been well balanced with a 54:46 male: female ratio.

The campaign content comprises of various awareness and fraud safety films, payment best practices, brochure, posters, payment fraud safety infographics, and more are being broadcast through digital mediums. The primary campaign content is available in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada and the payment mediums chosen for awareness are UPI, Credit & , and Online & Mobile Banking. The campaign collaterals can be accessed at: www.dsci.in/digital-payment-abhiyan

Digital Payment Abhiyan’s outreach success has been enabled by a broad cross-section of ecosystem partners who have all joined hands to spread the message. Airtel Payments , , BharatPe, CID Karnataka, , Government of Telangana, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, iMahila, MasterCard, NABARD, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PayPal, Limited, PayU, State (SBI) and VISA have come on board as campaign partners. Extensive support from MyGov, ’s citizen engagement platform has further amplified the reach.

Gopalakrishnan S, Additional Secretary, MeitY, said, “Digital Payments are redefining the financial ecosystem in India and we are happy to witness the positive momentum in the country. However with the rise of digital payment mediums, and considering the levels of financial literacy and awareness in the population, more people become vulnerable to frauds and hence increasing consumer awareness on being safe while using these mediums is paramount. Digital Payment Abhiyan is an important initiative in this direction which is reaching out to citizens in Tier-II and Tier III cities through regional languages and spreading awareness on security and safety aspects of Digital Payments”.

Sajith Sivanandan, Managing Director - Google Pay and Next Billion Users initiative, commented, “User education and awareness are key for digital payments to continue on its growth trajectory. The Digital Payment Abhiyan forms a critical part of our efforts at Google Pay to empower users with the relevant tools and knowledge to be able to transact online with confidence and we will continue to further invest in these efforts in the times to come.”

Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI said, “DSCI remains committed towards data protection and online safety while citizens across the country join the Digital momentum. With the support of Ministry of Electronics and IT, Google and campaign partners across the payment ecosystem including several leading organizations from banking, card networks as well as FinTech’s have immensely helped to reach out to citizens. Digital Payment safety is a cornerstone in enabling trust among users to adopt a digital lifestyle and we are happy that Digital Payment Abhiyan is spreading awareness over digital payment benefits and its security aspects through various regional languages.”

About DSCI

Data Security Council of India (DSCI) is a premier industry body on data protection in India, setup by NASSCOM®, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cyber security and privacy. DSCI brings together governments and their agencies, industry sectors including IT-BPM, BFSI, Telecom, industry associations, data protection authorities and think tanks for public advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach initiatives.

For More information, visit: dsci.in/digital-payment-abhiyan/ Contact: [email protected]