Eight banks suffer a higher rate of failure in digital transactions

At least eight Indian banks — mostly public sector lenders — suffered a high rate of failure in digital transactions during October as online payments surged through the festive season, data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows.

The technical failure rate of over 3%, for the second successive month, is leading to widespread concern in the fintech industry as it braces for the full-scale launch of new entrant WhatsApp Pay. Banking experts estimate that failure rates above 0.1% for a widely-used real time fund transfer system is a concern.

NPCI data shows that digital remittances from state-owned lender Corporation Bank had the highest technical decline rate of 14.8%. Others with high failure rates include Canara Bank with a failure rate of 9.8%, Bank of India with 4.2 %, while the country’s largest mass-lender State Bank of India recorded a rate of 3.7%.