The Reserve Bank of India has advised all banks to integrate the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator tool developed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) to curb online fraudulent transactions.

Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI)

• The Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) was launched in May 2025 by DoT’s Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU).

• FRI is a risk-based metric that classifies a mobile number to have been associated with medium, high, or very high risk of financial fraud. 

• As the life of a mobile number that is misused in cyber frauds is generally few days, and full verification can take several days, an advance indicator on risk associated with such numbers is very useful. 

• As soon as a suspected mobile number is flagged by a stakeholder, it undergoes multidimensional analysis, and classifies it into medium, high, or very high financial risk associated with it.

• This classification is an outcome of inputs obtained from various stakeholders including reporting on Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’s (I4C) 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 prioritise 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 the 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 FRI allows for swift, targeted, and collaborative action against suspected fraud in both telecom and financial domains.

• The system’s utility has already been demonstrated, with leading institutions like PhonePe, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Paytm, and India Post Payments Bank actively using the platform.

• With UPI being the most preferred payment method across India, this intervention could save millions of citizens from falling prey to cyber fraud.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)