SMS as Google Pay, Paytm notifications to customers too costly! Companies want cheap option

Major online payment apps like Google Pay, Paytm, among others want in-app notification to be considered as an alternative to SMS notifications for financial transactions. Check details.

Google Pay, Paytm, among others want in-app notification to be considered. (Google Pay India Twitter)

What online payment making app do you use? Google Pay, Paytm, or others? Have you noticed that whenever you make any transaction you receive an SMS alert saying the amount has been debited from your account? But now the government has been urged to consider in-app alerts other than message notifications. Yes, major payment making applications including Google Pay and Paytm have filed a petition to the government to consider in-app alerts as an alternative to SMS notifications for banking transactions.

The reasons cited behind opting for in-app alerts other than SMS notification are higher cost and security risks, according to a report by Economic Times. The report further informed that on May 30, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) sent a representation to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) requesting to consider allowing app-based notifications for banking transactions.

Nasscom in the representation to RBI, informed that the charge estimated for in-app notification is Rs. 0.001. While the cost of sending a single SMS alert is Rs. 0.12. It further said that as there has been digital transactions worth Rs. 8,734 crore in the financial year 2022 and the cost of SMS based notifications for the same have added up to approximately Rs. 1048 crore.

Nasscom has also suggested that customers can be given an option to choose if they want an SMS alert or in-app notification or both for the financial transactions they make of up to Rs.10,000. While for transactions higher than Rs. 10,000, both SMS and ‘In-App notifications' may be mandatory and later the thresholds may be increased.