Axis Bank debuts industry-first SMS Shield feature

The Safety Centre also allows customers switch off or restrict specific digital banking functions.

Axis Bank has launched a new ‘Safety Centre’ on its mobile banking app, open, giving customers direct control over key security settings to protect their accounts from unauthorised or suspicious activity. 

The bank said the feature allows users to manage account security in real time without calling customer care or visiting a branch.

The Safety Centre lets customers switch off or restrict specific digital banking functions based on their needs. 

These include disabling internet banking, stopping all fund transfers across mobile and internet banking, blocking UPI payments, and preventing online shopping transactions that use net banking, including those initiated through third-party apps. 

Customers can also stop the addition of new payees so funds can only be sent to existing beneficiaries, and set per-transaction limits for fund transfers and UPI payments, with higher-value transactions requiring extra authentication.

One of the features, SMS Shield, checks whether SMS messages claiming to be from Axis Bank are genuine by verifying the sender ID against the bank’s official IDs. The bank said this is the first such feature of its kind in the industry.

Axis Bank said all changes made through the Safety Centre take effect instantly, allowing customers to act quickly if they spot unusual activity.