New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday said that it helped prevent suspected cyber fraud losses of more than Rs 5,000 crore through its Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), within 15 months of its launch on May 22, 2025.
According to the DoT, cumulative savings through the use of FRI rose from Rs 139.16 crore in August 2025 to Rs 5,043.73 crore by August 2026.
More than Rs 2,000 crore in suspected losses were prevented in the four months from April 2026 alone, the Ministry of Communications said.
The department said the amount represents money that did not have to be traced, frozen or recovered because it was prevented from leaving citizens’ accounts in the first place.
The FRI is a risk-assessment framework developed by the DoT to help financial institutions assess in real time whether a mobile number is potentially linked to cybercrime or financial fraud. It operates through the DoT’s Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), which classifies mobile numbers as medium, high or very high risk based on the likelihood of their involvement in financial fraud.
The risk classification draws intelligence from several sources, including citizen reports submitted through the Sanchar Saathi platform, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre’s National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, and information shared by telecom operators, banks, financial institutions and other telecom-related parameters.
The intelligence generated through the DIP is securely shared with banks, payment service providers, insurers, securities intermediaries and pension-sector entities. These institutions can incorporate the risk signals into customer onboarding, transaction monitoring and fraud detection systems, allowing them to identify potentially fraudulent transactions before the money is transferred.
The DoT said the approach represents a shift from reactive fraud management to a preventive model, where suspicious transactions can be identified at the point of initiation.
The department highlighted that prevention can significantly reduce the burden associated with recovering money after a cyber fraud has taken place. Fraud proceeds can move rapidly through multiple mule accounts, making recovery a race against time. In contrast, an FRI check can be completed in a fraction of a second when a payment is initiated.
(IANS)
