BHIM app users raise security concerns within first week

New Delhi: Within less than a week of its launch, the users of Bharat Interface for Money or BHIM, an app developed by the government, have started raising concerns about its security features.

Many users expressed their disappointment with the BHIM app on social media, blaming the government for launching the app in a haste without any proper testing.

BHIM was launched on Friday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote digital transactions using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a bank-to-bank fund transfer system backed by the Internet and smartphones, using phone numbers linked to banks.

On Wednesday, a user of the app tweeted he was receiving spam payment requests. He also suggested the developers of the app enable an option to block unknown payment addresses to protect the users from losing money if they accept the request unknowingly.

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Payment address is an address which uniquely identifies a person’s bank account. The app developed by the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) is available for download on the Google PlayStore for Android smartphones. An IoS version is expected to be launched by the next week.

In the last few days, several issues have surfaced such as the presence of bugs on the interface, freezing of the payments page in the app, generation of multiple unsuccessful OTPs (one time passwords) or no OTP at all. Some users have complained that they can’t go back from the payments page in the app. Thus, users have to exit the application completely and re-initiate the transaction.

NPCI on its part has been trying to find a solution to the problems of each user. It tweeted on Wednesday that it is working on an update which will allow the users to report spam. The users have also been warned not to accept any unknown payment requests on the BHIM app.

The BHIM app is linked to over 30 private and public sector banks such as State Bank of India, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Union Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. YES Bank is the latest bank to be integrated with the app.

BHIM has already attracted 5 million users and enabled close to 7,00,000 transactions, according to CEO of Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant.

On Tuesday, Kant had tweeted that around 1.5 million bank accounts had already been linked with the app and more than 1.4 million payment addresses been created. Within two days of its launch, the BHIM app became the top free app on Google PlayStore.

Currently, there is a limit of Rs10,000 per transaction and Rs25,000 in a day for transfers through the bank account. The app, which is currently available in Hindi and English, is expected to be launched in other regional languages soon.