Fintech Contracts In India: Using Cybersecurity Clauses For Consumer Safety
- IJLLR Journal
- 10 hours ago
- 1 min read
Srijopriyo Das, B.A.LL.B., Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, Symbiosis International (Deemed) University, Pune.
Arkya Banerjee, BA. LLB, Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, Symbiosis International (Deemed) University, Pune.
ABSTRACT
While digital payment innovation in India has improved transaction efficiency, it has also created novel vulnerabilities for consumers due to fraud and infrastructure issues. The purpose of this paper is to recast digital payment security as a central theme within the framework of consumer protection law because insecure digital payments systems amount to inferior digital service provision under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Nevertheless, conventional consumer law remains inherently reactive and ineffective at addressing the speed, complexity, and shared liabilities of digital financial malpractice.
It will be argued that consumer protection law is becoming more contractualised in the Indian digital payments space where cybersecurity provisions, indemnities, audits, and liability distribution measures have been entrenched in private law through fintech contracts, constituting a covert form of private governance of digital finance. Despite its effectiveness in overcoming regulatory deficiencies, there are concerns of privity, opacity, algorithms, unconscionability, and insolvency of fintech firms underpinning such contractualization.
Comparative law perspectives from the UK, EU, and Brazil will be considered to highlight the need for active regulation of such private forms of governance of digital finance.
Keywords: Digital Consumer Protection, Fintech Regulation, Contractual Governance, Digital Payment Security, Cyber Risk Allocation.
