New Delhi: Rattled by frequent cashback fraud incidents involving its staff, e-commernce platform ‘Paytm Mall’ announced a partnership Monday with Global professional services firm EY to build a technology-driven fraud prevention system.
The move is to undertake frequent audits to identify and prevent collusion, implement learnings from global practices as ‘Paytm’ expands operations into other geographies and strengthens the processes for merchant on-boarding and marketing, the company said in a statement.
A report in a newspaper here, citing sources, had claimed Sunday that some ‘Paytm Mall’ staff colluded with third-party vendors, created fake orders and received kickbacks for their assistance.
Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall, however, did not address the report directly in the statement.
“Our partnership with EY will help benchmark with global best practices as we build a ‘Technology Driven Fraud Prevention System’ to scale our operations,” the organisation said.
“Our teams continue to work closely with EY to share our learnings and insights. We are committed to build a trusted commerce platform and will take strict action against wherever needed,” said Srinivas Mothey, senior vice-president-Paytm Mall.
The company said it continues to de-list fraud merchants and take strict action wherever needed. “Apart from admin, finance and other support functions, the company also has a business operations team which works closely with partnered merchants to plan and execute cashback offers and promotions leaving a scope for collusion,” the statement further said before adding, “The EY partnership will also undertake audit and fraud prevention using both human and Artificial Intelligence (AI).”
Over the past few years, Paytm has been bleeding massively in online retail business and there is no respite in sight.
The brainchild of Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the e-commerce platform’s losses have mounted and in the financial year 2018, the company posted a loss of nearly Rs 1,800 crore on revenue of Rs 774 crore.
Paytm Mall has so far managed to raise over USD650 million from Alibaba, SoftBank and SAIF Partners.