The Department of Telecommunications has welcomed the Reserve Bank of India’s directive to all Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payments Banks and Co-operative Banks to integrate the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator into their systems, marking a significant milestone in the national effort to combat cyber-enabled financial fraud. The RBI advisory, issued on 30 June 2025, recognises the strategic importance of this telecom intelligence-driven tool and calls for full API-based integration between banks and the Department of Telecommunications’ Digital Intelligence Platform to facilitate real-time response and continuous refinement of fraud detection models.
Launched in May 2025 by the Digital Intelligence Unit of the Department of Telecommunications, the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator is a classification mechanism that assigns a mobile number a risk level of Medium, High, or Very High based on its linkage to suspected financial fraud. The system draws from a diverse range of sources including the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal operated by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), DoT’s Chakshu platform, and intelligence inputs provided by banks and financial institutions.
By integrating this tool, banks and financial service providers such as NBFCs and UPI platforms gain the ability to act pre-emptively against potential fraud. For instance, the FRI enables the blocking or delaying of suspicious transactions, automatic alerts to affected customers, and strategic triaging based on risk exposure. Major institutions including PhonePe, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Paytm, and India Post Payments Bank are already leveraging the system, underscoring its operational viability. Given UPI’s position as the country’s most widely used payment medium, this technology has the potential to shield millions of users from online financial fraud.
The Digital Intelligence Unit also circulates the Mobile Number Revocation List to relevant stakeholders, which contains numbers that have been disconnected due to cybercrime links, verification failures, or misuse—many of which are implicated in financial fraud schemes. These measures collectively establish a robust feedback loop between telecom data and financial service providers.
The Department of Telecommunications stated that this development marks a new era of digital trust and inter-agency collaboration, aligning closely with the Government’s Digital India vision. It reaffirmed its commitment to continue supporting regulated entities with technology-enabled, nationally coordinated solutions and to strengthen alert mechanisms and fraud detection frameworks through further integration of telecom insights with banking workflows. As more financial institutions adopt the FRI, the indicator is poised to become a sector-wide standard, driving real-time responsiveness, reinforcing public confidence and boosting systemic resilience across India’s digital financial ecosystem.
