Banking on a systems upgrade: What more could we expect going ahead

The cautionary tale from the Block Inc debacle is that increasing digitisation of retail financial services in India has raised the threat levels of frauds

Hindenburg Research has trained its guns on Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc alleging that it had overstated its user counts, and downplayed customer acquisition costs through its Cash App platform. That Block had reported “a pandemic surge” in its user counts and revenue; and ignored “widespread fraudulent accounts and payments”. The veracity of Hindenburg’s charges against Block is yet to be proven, but back home the “Report on Digital Lending through Online Platforms and Mobile Apps” released on November 18, 2021, was disconcerting. It said there were approximately 1,100 lending apps available for Indian Android users across 80-plus application stores (from