Airtel Payments Bank on Wednesday launched 'Airtel Safe Pay', with a view to protect its customers from online payment frauds.

"With 'Airtel Safe Pay', Airtel customers making UPI or netbanking-based payments through Airtel Payments Bank, no longer have to worry about money leaving their accounts without their explicit consent," Airtel Payments Bank said in a statement.

The new solution for safe transactions leverages Airtel's strength of network intelligence to provide an additional layer of payment validation compared to the industry norm of two-factor authentication, it added.

"This offers the highest level of protection from potential frauds such as phishing, stolen credentials or passwords, and even phone cloning that catches customers unaware," it said.

Anubrata Biswas, MD & CEO, Airtel Payments Bank said: "We are happy to leverage Airtel's core telco strengths to bring to market this unique capability that ensures that our customers have full control over their transactions. This sets a new benchmark in the Indian digital payments space by making security paramount."

Using 'Airtel Safe Pay', Airtel Payments Bank customers can make secure digital payments across millions of merchants, online retailers and utilities, and even send money, said the statement.

Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel: "Airtel Safe Pay is yet another innovation where our secure network and world-class digital platforms combine to solve a unique market problem."

The new solution for safer transactions is free of charge and can be activated through Airtel Thanks app home screen or from the banking section.