Evolution of an OTP nation

A billion OTPs are sent in India every day, for everything from bank transactions to cab ride confirmations to home deliveries. So much so that it’s hard to imagine life without them

- Charles Assisi

It is unlikely that mathematicians at work to develop the algorithms to create One Time Passwords (OTPs) in the 1940s would have imagined over a billion OTPs being delivered every day as text messages across Indian telecom networks. The mathematicians may not even have imagined how it would be delivered. Or that it would be used to authenticate people's identities across domains as diverse as banking to travel, e-commerce deliveries, cinema tickets, even cab rides and much else.

While the technology has its flaws (and these are now showing up), the telecom companies that deliver these OTPs are at work to upgrade all networks across the country to 5G from the existing 3G and 4G networks most people use. Even as they do that, work is in progress to create the blueprints for a 6G world. But it is impossible to miss the confidence in the voice of a veteran who has worked at most telecom companies (telcos), witnessed the industry evolve from close quarters, and is now employed at Jio to oversee large parts of the company's operations in North India.

"Realistically speaking, it will take between 7-10 years to phase OTPs out of India," he says.

"And what's the best-case to phase OTPs out?"

"Nothing less than 5 years."

His confidence in the longevity of how long OTPs will continue to stay in India, it appears, isn't misplaced. Manoj Menon, CEO and founder of Twimbit, a Singapore-based technology advisory and research firm that works with telcos world over makes the case that OTPs are embedded in the Indian psyche. His experience is that "India is a trust-deficit society and OTPs fill the gap."

That is why, Menon goes on to explain, over time, OTPs have spilled across from banking where it was first implemented to authenticate transactions to other industries. To highlight his case, Menon points to taxi-ride hailing apps such as Uber and Ola, that now use it.