Opinion | The curious cases of SIM swap frauds in recent times

The digital era has ushered an unbreakable marriage between our finances and the mobile phone. In the past five years or so, India has dramatically changed the way it transacts and accesses finances, largely driven by the current government’s push towards a digital economy.

India managed to connect over 500 million people to the internet in 2019 and, not surprisingly, 97% of these users have access to the internet from their mobile phones, according to a March 2019 report released by Kantar IMRB ICUBE, a market research and consumer consulting organization. Over 50% of these internet users are from rural India, which is a significant achievement when it comes to digital inclusion, the report added.

Moreover, according to the World Bank’s 2018 Global Findex Database, over 1.18 billion people own a mobile phone in India, which is over 90% of the population. Most of these mobile phone users are expected to own a bank account.