Auto-debit deactivated: Remember to send your nod to continue watching your favourite OTT platforms

Arunava Dutta (61) retired from his long service in a public sector bank in August 2020. With the pandemic raging, he could not go out to meet friends and watch movies and theatres of which he had a long list pending. Confined to his home, poor Dutta’s only solace was a number of OTT platforms, both Indian and foreign, which he had subscribed.

However, from tomorrow, Dutta can no longer just sit back and keep watching his favourite movies and series on the top-of-the-line I pad that he gifted himself on retirement. With the auto-debit facility deactivated from April 1, he would regularly get messages for payment of subscription fees. If he misses any, the service would be interrupted and resumed if only he again resumes subscription all over again.

Due to the lockdown, OTT platforms have become an extremely popular source of entertainment in the entire country.

The number of paid subscribers rose by as much as 33% in the four-month period between end-March and July 2020 to reach 29 million from 22 million.

According to KPMG, the size of the OTT market in India was Rs 2,150 crore in 2017-18, Rs 3,900 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 6,600 crore in 2019-20. The projection in COVID-hit 2020-21 is Rs 9,700 crore. The estimate, however, was done before the lockdown.

Almost all the big movie production houses release their films on OTT nowadays.

Like Dutta, lakhs who are hooked to OTT platforms for their entertainment might face problems if they miss communication from the bank to renew subscription. “I had an auto debit facility going that removed my worry to renew subscription. I subscribe to more than half a dozen OTT platforms and have never bothered to renew them,” said Milly Das, student of a college in Kolkata.

According to the new Reserve Bank of India guidelines for customer’s security and safety point of view, banks should obtain nod of the customers before paying third parties.

From April 1, it will only affect payments from debit and credit cards.

The guidelines state that from April 1 Additional Factor Authentication would need banks to send a notification to customers five days before the scheduled payment.

The transaction will only take place after approval from the customer. This is needed for all transactions, however the small the amount is.

If the amount is more than Rs 5,000, banks also need to send a one-time-password for carrying out the payment.

“The new rule will need me to keep checking message alerts from banks regularly since I have to give a separate nod for each payment,” said Dutta.

However, both Dutta and Das welcomed the central banks move if it helped to minimise cases of fraudulent transactions.

“The process is a bit complicated one. If the customer disapproves, the transactions will fail. The individual will need to make the payment manually. We have already raised the issue with RBI, stating that millions of transactions could fail due to the additional authentication,” said a statement from Internet and Mobile Association of India.

But all OTT consumers were not unhappy. Rina Sarkar, a retired teacher, welcomed the move she preferred not to remain subscribed to the OTT platforms all the time. “I would like to subscribe to a platform only when there is a new interesting series to watch,” she said.