Mumbai, January 23: With technology running at panther speed, recent data leaks and threats in the online world show us how vulnerable the online marketplace has become in the recent years. According to a recent tweet by an active Twitter user named Ateeb Syed‏, a Paytm page claimed to reward Rs 4000 just to post and to promote their page. He asked on Twitter saying, “Is that a genuine page of Pay TM or someone is using just the name”.

To this, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma replied saying, “Obviously a fake page. Any offer which ultimately doesn’t point to Paytm.com  URL is a fake page”.

In a scenario like this, where fake pages are being created, Digital India seems to look like a distant dream. Despite the push for digitalization, there are no dedicated laws on digital payments in India which to protect the online consumers. Paytm which is run by One97 Communications Ltd, is likely to be valued at about $10 billion when some existing and former employees sell a part of their shares to new investors. As per reports by Livemint, the secondary share sale is expected to be in the range of $50-70 million. The company was valued at about $7 billion in May 2017 when it raised $1.4 billion from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.

Earlier this month, Paytm Mall, that is owned by Paytm said it plans to recruit 150 engineering and management graduates from premier technology and management institutions. In the last week, Paytm Founder said that Indian economy is set to double to USD 5 trillion in the next 7-8 years as booming consumption of digital services would support the addition of about USD 2.5 trillion to the country's wealth.  "It took 70 years for India to become USD 2.5 trillion economy, and now the same amount of growth will take just next 7 years," Sharma said while addressing Internet and Mobile Association of Indias (IAMAI) 11th India Digital Summit.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 23, 2018 02:45 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).