Tech-savvy but wary of using cards online

MUMBAI: His Blackberry has replaced the books on his bedside table long ago so that he can check e-mails just before he falls asleep and as soon as he wakes up and if it beeps in between. You'd never catch him without an iPod, a Blackberry, a Nokia N-series phone and at least one Notebook. He even claims to have mastered the art of surfing on his Blackberry in the seconds before the traffic lights blink to green.But there's one thing this tech addict won't do. Rajnish Verma, chief technology officer of a software firm, has never used his credit card online or signed on for internet banking.
"You can't blame me for being paranoid," says Verma, "I spend 12 hours a day trying to build tools to outsmart cyber criminals, so I know exactly how smart they are. I might not know that someone is out to steal my money, but I don't know they aren’t either, right?"
Paranoid Verma might be, but he is certainly not alone. Security analysts say that there is a clear trend emerging which shows that many tech-savvy professionals are chary of online transactions. This is ironic, given the fact that e-commerce in India on the whole has been growing steadily by 30% year on year, according to a recent report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The market size of the e-commerce segment in India stands at Rs 7,080 crore in 2007.
(Some names have been changed)