Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

2024: Data breaches due to outdated technology

At the end of April 2024, it became known that the national payment system of India was faced with numerous failures associated with outdated technologies of banks. Problems lead to security breaches of IT platforms and leaks of confidential information.

As Bloomberg notes, India is actively investing in a vast ecosystem of technologies to increase the availability of financial services and attract hundreds of millions of citizens to the digital services market. India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform is used to pay for just about every item - from expensive jewelry to a cup of tea.

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The introduction of digital tools has allowed to improve the quality of customer service in India. However, the basic level of these systems and the IT architecture have not been properly upgraded. It is said that the volume of digital transactions in the country is growing rapidly: according to estimates, from 2017 to 2023, the figure has increased more than fivefold. This creates a significant load on the servers, which, in turn, provokes various failures. Indian banks lack the necessary infrastructure to adequately protect customer data and prevent information leaks, according to research by McKinsey & Company.

Amid the current situation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has banned Kotak Mahindra Bank, one of the country's leading credit institutions, from issuing credit cards and attracting new customers in online services due to cybersecurity issues. At the same time, after a failure in the ICICI Bank application, data on about 17 thousand new cardholders leaked. Moreover, failures are not limited to financial transactions - there is also fraud in the banking sector. Upgrading server systems and services can take years.^[1]

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