Are you secured when dealing with money on your mobile phones?

The sheer convenience of shopping and banking with mobile phones has made it an exceedingly popular device for digital transactions. According to a KPMG report, digital payments are estimated to see a CAGR of 12.7 percent in the number of non-cash transactions by 2021. The growth is being driven by India which will see a growth in non-cash transactions of 20 percent by 2023, far higher than the United States, the United Kingdom, China & Japan.

Digital payments in India received an impetus from the introduction of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in 2016 which enabled mobile apps to instantly transfer money between bank accounts. Since then, mobile payment wallets have dominated the landscape; whether it’s PayTM, PhonePe, GooglePay or another app, more and more Indians are sending money to each other through the comfort of their phones.

Mobile payment: Convenient but also dangerous

Yet, it’s important to remember that convenience should not overshadow security. While you should embrace the ease of use that mobile payment apps offer you, you should not become lax. Attackers are also cognizant of the fact that users of mobile payment applications store all their financial data within these apps which make these great targets for identity thefts.

However, the proliferation of mobile banking apps has also led to the emergence of scamsters who cheat people of their money by getting them to reveal their bank account or OTP details. We explored such a scam in a previous Quick Heal blog which you can read here.

The scamster targets elderly, old-age or first-time users of these apps who may not be completely aware of the intricacies of online payments. They offer to buy an item of yours and pretend to send a collect payment request. However, they send a ‘receive payment’ request instead and users unknowingly input their OTP or passwords and transfer money.

Staying vigilant when paying on the phone

Hence when dealing with money on phones, it is important to stay vigilant. Users should ensure they only download authentic apps from the official app stores and not mistakenly download illegitimate ones. It is also important to install a mobile security solution which offers such protection.

Quick Heal Total Security for Android offers advanced protection for Android smartphones from mobile banking threats, along with viruses, malware and other harmful apps. Apart from securing your financial transactions, Quick Total Security for Android recovers devices in case of loss or theft, blocks unwanted national and international numbers and scales device security by triggering motion and light alarm.

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