The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has adopted the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), a risk-based metric disseminated to stakeholders via the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), as a major step to combat financial crime and cyber fraud.
If you’ve recently experienced a delay in your UPI transaction on platforms like PhonePe, Google Pay, or Paytm, it might not be a technical glitch — but a deliberate fraud prevention measure by the government.
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According to a Ministry of Communications release as on May 21, 2025, “The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced sharing of “Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI)” with stakeholders- an output from a multi- dimensional analytical tool developed as part of the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) to empower financial institutions with advance actionable intelligence for cyber fraud prevention.”
What is the “Financial Fraud Risk Indicator”?
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 Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C’s) National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), DoT’s Chakshu platform, and Intelligence shared by banks and financial institutions.
How does such advance notification help?
The DoT’s Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU) plays a pivotal role by sharing the Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL) with stakeholders. This list includes mobile numbers disconnected due to involvement in cybercrime, failed re-verification, or exceeding prescribed limits, many of which are linked to financial fraud. Given that fraudulent mobile numbers often remain active for only a few days, timely identification is critical.
How Phonepe is protecting customers
PhonePe, one of the first companies to implement FRI, has declined transactions associated with Very High FRI mobile numbers and, as part of the PhonePe Protect function, displayed an on-screen warning. The data that PhonePe supplied shows that the model is effective because it has been established that the predictability of the numbers that are passed as soft signals to be involved in cyber fraud instances is very high. Before approving the transaction, PhonePe is attempting to show a proactive user warning for Medium FRI numbers.
Other collaboration to reduce financial fraud
The FRI’s impact is amplified through collaboration with leading UPI platforms, including PhonePe, Paytm, and Google Pay, which collectively handle over 90% of UPI transactions in India. These platforms are integrating DIP alerts into their systems to bolster fraud prevention:
One major UPI platform has introduced transaction delays, requiring user confirmations and displaying alerts for flagged numbers.
Other banks and financial institutions are actively leveraging FRI data to mitigate cyber fraud risks.
Since UPI is the most widely used payment mechanism in India, millions of people could avoid becoming victims of cybercrime thanks to this intervention. The FRI makes it possible to take prompt, focused, and cooperative action against suspected frauds in the banking and telecommunications sectors.
