Financial Fraud Risk Indicator:
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directed all Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payments Banks, and Co-operative Banks to integrate the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) developed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) into their systems.
- Financial Fraud Risk Indicator was launched by the Department of Telecommunications Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU).
- It is a risk-based metric that classifies a mobile number to have been associated with Medium, High, or Very High risk of financial fraud.
- This classification is an outcome of inputs obtained from various stakeholders including reporting on Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C’s) National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), DoT’s Chakshu platform, and Intelligence shared by banks and financial institutions.
- It empowers stakeholders-especially banks, NBFCs, and UPI service providers- to prioritize enforcement and take additional customer protection measures in case a mobile number has high risk.
- The Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU) of DoT regularly shares the Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL) with stakeholders, detailing numbers disconnected due to cybercrime links, failed re-verification, or misuse—many of which are tied to financial frauds.
- Banks and financial institutions can use FRI in real time to take preventive measures such as declining suspicious transactions, issuing alerts or warnings to customers, and delaying transactions flagged as high risk.
- The system’s utility has already been demonstrated with leading institutions such as PhonePe, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Paytm, and India Post Payments Bank actively using the platform.
- The FRI allows for swift, targeted, and collaborative action against suspected frauds in both telecom and financial domains.
