PCI launches 'Project Pratima' to standardise icons for payments

The apex body of payments and settlement players in the country, the Payments Council of India (PCI), has launched an initiative known as ‘Project Pratima’.

The initiative has been launched to standardise icons for payments across apps and platforms to enable customers to identify digital payment icons. Pratima means ‘icon’ in Sanskrit.

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Executive Director of PCI, Gaurav Chopra, told Moneycontrol: “It is a project which PCI has undertaken to standardise icons of most common use cases in payments. The main idea behind this is to safeguard people against fraud and increase the adoption of digital payments. Standardised icons will help users identify payment actions correctly.”

According to the Project’s website, it aims to prevent fraud while making transactions by improving familiarity, trust and security of digital payment icons.

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“Different icons are being used across digital payment application operators and payment entities. This could be unclear for new users as well as the un-initiated for adoption of digital payments. Project Pratima aims to introduce a uniform set of icons for basic payment actions and processes,” read PCI’s website for its Project Pratima.

Instances of fraud have increased in recent years with a growth in UPI transactions. Latest data by the Ministry of Home Affairs suggests that over 84,145 UPI fraud complaints were received in the second quarter 2022.