70 lakh Mobile Connections involved in Cybercrime and Financial Fraud

The Secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, presided over an event in New Delhi on November 28, 2023, that addressed cyber security challenges in the financial services sector and the recent incidents of online financial fraud.

The meeting additionally included participation by the Secretary, Telecom, and senior officials from the Departments of Financial Services (DFS), Economic Affairs (DEA), Revenue (DoR), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre (I4C), and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank, Airtel Payment Bank, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Google Pay India, PayTM, and Razorpay.

The Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs, offered a presentation on the most recent statistics of digital payment frauds reported in the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), multiple sources of these financial frauds, fraudsters’ methods of operation, and challenges in combating financial cybercrime.

Furthermore, State Bank of India (SBI) personnel delivered a brief presentation on SBI’s Proactive Risk Monitoring (PRM) policy. Furthermore, PayTM and Razorpay executives highlighted their best practises, which enabled them to reduce such frauds.

The meeting assessed banks’ and other financial institutions’ readiness to address the challenges associated with cyber security in the financial services sector, as well as the rising trend of digital payment frauds, and deliberated on a focused approach to mitigating such cyber-attacks and frauds.

During the deliberation, it was highlighted that:

• So far, 70 lakh mobile device connections linked to cybercrime/financial fraud have been removed via digital intelligence platforms.
• 3.5 lakh victims have benefited from the recovery of Rs. 900 crore in fraudulent funds.

Other issues were also discussed including:

• Reinforced emphasis on ensuring seamless coordination among police, banks, and financial institutions for real-time tracking and blocking of defrauded money
• Bringing all financial institutions, including NBFCs and significant cooperative banks, onto the ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS)’ platform, which has now onboarded 259 financial intermediaries
• Banks’ strategy to combat the threat of mule accounts
• Banks must enhance their response time to guidance about online fraud received from various sources
• Banks and financial institutions appoint regional/state level nodal officers to meet the needs of law enforcement agencies
• Keeping a central record of merchant onboarding and standardising KYC
• Consultation with relevant stakeholders to whitelist digital lending apps
• Status of execution of the Digital Lending Working Group’s recommendations, including the setting up of the Digital India Trust Agency (DIGITA) and the introduction of the ‘Banning of Unregulated Lending Activities (BULA) Act’
• Every stakeholder, including banks and financial institutions, must increase client awareness and sensitization programmes on digital payment security