In a major boost to India’s fight against cyber-enabled financial crime, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reported that its Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) has helped prevent nearly ₹660 crore in potential cyber fraud losses within just six months of operation. The milestone highlights the growing effectiveness of a model built on inter-agency coordination, technology-driven risk assessment, and active citizen participation.
According to DoT, more than 1,000 banks, Third-Party Application Providers (TPAPs), and financial institutions have now onboarded the DIP. The platform functions as a secure, real-time backend system for sharing intelligence related to the misuse of telecom resources in cybercrime, enabling faster and more informed decision-making across the financial ecosystem.
FRI Emerges as the Backbone of the System
At the core of the DIP is the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), launched in May 2025. The FRI is a risk-based analytics tool that categorises mobile numbers into Medium, High, and Very High risk buckets. This classification is derived from multiple data sources, including citizen reports, cybercrime databases, and telecom intelligence inputs.
The FRI is supported by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), allowing it to be seamlessly integrated into banking and digital payment workflows through secure APIs. This integration ensures that risk signals are available in real time, precisely when a transaction is initiated.
How UPI Users are Protected
When a mobile number—previously linked to “digital arrest” scams, fake call centres, or SIM-box fraud networks—is used in a UPI or banking transaction, the FRI immediately flags it as high-risk. Based on this signal, banks and TPAPs can:
- Instantly block the transaction, or
- Issue on-screen warnings to the user before funds are transferred
This early intervention prevents money from leaving the user’s account. DoT estimates that such proactive risk controls are directly responsible for averting cyber fraud losses worth ₹660 crore so far.
A New Model of Institutional Coordination
The DIP currently enables coordination among over 1,050 organisations, including central security agencies, state police forces, and select digital platforms. Policy experts note that this represents a decisive shift from reactive recovery mechanisms to proactive detection and prevention, closing the gaps traditionally exploited by organised cybercrime networks.
Citizen Participation as a Key Pillar
Public participation has emerged as a critical component of the system’s effectiveness. Through DoT’s citizen-facing platform Sanchar Saathi and the ‘Chakshu’ reporting facility, citizens are flagging 4,000–5,000 suspicious mobile numbers ежедневно. These inputs flow directly into the DIP and FRI databases, allowing continuous refinement of risk scores.
Mobile Number Revocation List
The DIP also manages the Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL), which tracks numbers disconnected due to cybercrime involvement or failed re-verification. Once listed, such numbers are instantly identifiable across the banking system, preventing their reuse for fraudulent activities.
Policy Implications
Analysts say the wide adoption of DIP and FRI is creating a uniform, telecom-driven security layer across India’s digital payments ecosystem. With RBI advising banks to integrate FRI into their systems, the framework has gained institutional strength and consistency.
