Government, RBI, NPCI have taken various initiatives to prevent UPI transaction frauds, says Nirmala Sitharaman

Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister replied to questions raised by the opposition in the Parliament on Monday, November 25. The questions were asked on non-performing asset (NPA) cases in India, Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions and others.

While asked about the number of incidents of frauds reported in the UPO cash transactions, Sitharaman said, "RBI has implemented Central Payment Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR), a web-based payment related fraud reporting tool since march 2020. All the Regulated Entities (RE) are required to report the payment related frauds to the said CPFIR." 

The year-wise UPI domestic payments frauds reported during the last two financial years and the current financial year are as follows:

In FY 22-23, around 7.25 lakh fraud incidents took place worth Rs 573 crore, while in FY 2023-24, it was 13.42 lakh cases of Rs 1,087 crore and in FY 2024-25 (till September), there were 6.32 lakh cases worth Rs 485 crore.

"To prevent payment-related frauds including UPI transaction frauds, various initiatives have been taken by the Government, RBI and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) from time to time. These, inter alia, include device binding between customer mobile number and the device, two factor authentication through PIN, daily transaction limit, limits and curbs on use cases etc. Further, NPCI provides a fraud monitoring solution to all the banks to enable them to alert and decline transactions for fraud mitigation by using AI/ML based models. RBI and Banks have also been taking awareness campaigns through short SMS, radio campaign, publicity on prevention of ‘cyber-crime’ etc," the Finance Minister said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also launched a National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) as well as a National Cybercrime Helpline Number ”1930”. 

The Department of Telecommunications has released the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) and the 'Chakshu' feature on the Sanchar Saathi site (https://sanchar.gov.in). 'Chakshu' allows individuals to report suspected scam communications via phone, SMS, or WhatsApp messages with the goal to deceive, such as KYC expiration or bank account updates, etc.

Meanwhile, RBI is also collaborating with various relevant stakeholders for expanding the outreach of UPI through following modes:
i. Interlinking of UPI with Fast Payment System (FPS) of other countries for personal
remittances on reciprocal basis.
ii. Acceptance of UPI Apps via QR codes at merchant locations abroad and vice-versa.
iii. Deployment of UPI-like infrastructure in other countries.

Speaking about the NPA in India, Sitharaman said in Parliament that the central government has completed the recovery of Rs 1,23,299 crore from NPAs during the financial year 2023-24. zeebiz.com/economy-infra/news-sbi-pnb-bank-of-india-government-completes-npa-recovery-of-rs-123299-crore-in-fy23-24-says-finance-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-gross-328299