Truecaller bug allowed Indian users to register for payments service without consent

Spam call blocker and UPI payment service provider Truecaller suffered a bug that allowed Indian users to register for its payments services Truecaller Pay without user consent. The latest released Android app bearing version number 10.41.6 have been discontinued immediately after the bug was discovered by some users.

Truecaller, in a statement, has confirmed that bug has affected a small number of Android users in India and the new app is being released with a fix. The bug was first reported by some twitter users who sent out a series of tweets accusing the app's unauthorized attempts.

Truecaller Pay needs a lot of manual inputs to process the complete registration with the service using UPI. Therefore, affected users would not have actually completed their registration. In case, the user wants to cancel the registration, can go through the overflow menu and choose to 'deregister', 'delete' or similar to the account deletion options.

Since the app attempted to access the UPI bank details without a user's permission and manual inputs, this would be a serious breach that could abuse the users' privacy. Truecaller, however, apologize for any inconvenience caused to its consumers.

In March 2017, the multi-service provider Trucaller launched its UPI payment service in the country and later this year in June, the Swedish company launched VoIP calling feature for Android users. Truecaller Pay has received a lot of attention from users in India counting with over 15 million customers, according to earlier reports.

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Airtel Payments Bank to offer Atal Pension Yojana to its subscribers

The Telecom giant Airtel has introduced government-backed pension scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) to its Indian subscribers. Customers aged between 18 and 40 will get the benefits of this scheme, said Mr. Anubrata Biswas, Director & Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Payments Bank.

The Indian payment banks have not offered this scheme before. Bharti Airtel becomes the first bank that offers APY to workers in the unorganised sector in the country. To make India a financially strong country, the company offers this scheme to all savings account holders of airtel payment bank.

Airtel is going to offer this scheme as lowest as Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 on the basis of a minimum guaranteed monthly pension, according to Telecom Talk. Customers registered under APY will receive benefits according to their contribution starting at Rs. 42 per month.

Interested customers will need to subscribe to a specific insurance plan through airtel payment bank, which is also available via the web interface. At the moment, Atal Pension Yojana will be available for saving account holders at 50,000 points of Airtel Digital Payments and the rest 100,000 banking points will be added to this network later, Airtel informed.

Now moving around benefits - Just like Jeevan Pragati plan, Jeevan Labh, iTERM plan, etc. offered by LIC and other Insurance companies, subscriber's spouse will receive the same benefits in case, subscriber face demise. However, if both the spouse and the subscriber die, the registered nominee will receive Rs. 8.5 lakhs from the Airtel insurance scheme.

Airtel will also offer Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) plan to its subscribers. The said payment bank tied up with a government-led insurance scheme Bharti AXA General Insurance, widely known as Bharti AXA.

Source  Via