New Delhi: Continuing after the lunch break at the FutureCrime Summit 2026, leading experts, law enforcement officials, and financial risk strategists gathered for the afternoon’s opening session. Titled “Beyond Secure BFSI: Cybersecurity, Digital Payments and the Future of Financial Fraud Prevention,” the third panel addressed the surge in sophisticated cybercrime threatening India’s rapidly expanding digital payment infrastructure and banking sector.
High-Velocity Payment Rails and Fraud Moderation Frameworks
Moderated by Dr. Ramkumari Harisankar Iyer, CIO & AI Security Governance Director at Reliscale Consulting Pvt. Ltd., the discussion focused on the evolving operational, regulatory, and investigative challenges of safeguarding digital transactions. Dr. Iyer guided the conversation around key pain points in modern financial fraud—ranging from real-time instant payment vulnerabilities to cross-agency intelligence sharing and the exploitation of vulnerable demographics.
The transition from traditional batch-processed banking transactions to high-velocity instant payment systems introduces critical fraud management challenges. By processing high volumes of low-latency transfers, digital payment networks require continuous real-time risk assessment models capable of detecting fraudulent activity without compromising processing speed or user convenience.
Sectoral Perspectives on Transaction Security, Risk, and Law Enforcement
Shishir Sarkar, Enterprise Architect and Vice President at Deutsche Bank, detailed the technical security requirements governing real-time transaction rails such as IMPS, NEFT, and UPI. He explained that while instant payment systems provide unprecedented financial accessibility, their high-speed operational nature leaves financial institutions with a window of mere milliseconds to evaluate behavioral telemetry, flag anomalous transfers, and intercept fraudulent transactions before funds are settled, all while maintaining a seamless user experience.
Aarun Shankar Chandrasekaran, Head of Risk & Compliance at Aditya Birla Capital Digital, analyzed institutional risk management frameworks, focusing on how government-led regulatory portals are transforming fraud prevention protocols. He highlighted that centralized platforms—including the Department of Telecommunications’ Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU), MHA’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), and the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP)—provide essential cross-industry intelligence feeds that allow institutions to track money laundering trails, identify mule accounts, and neutralize systemic financial risks.
Divyam Agarwal, Associate Partner at JSA, examined the legal and regulatory parameters surrounding financial cybercrime, emphasizing that threat actors frequently bypass technical perimeter controls by exploiting human trust through sophisticated psychological manipulation, such as coercive “digital arrest” schemes. He observed that although India possesses a comprehensive statutory framework—comprising the Information Technology Act, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Payment and Settlement Systems Act, and directives from the Supreme Court—regulatory, financial, and enforcement bodies often continue to operate in departmental silos, delaying rapid asset recovery.
Mehnaz Perveen, Vice President of Trust & Safety (LERT) at Paytm, focused on operational fraud mitigation strategies, stressing that the expanding scale of payment scams necessitates an aggressive, multi-stakeholder defense network. She pointed out that eliminating illicit mule account networks and stopping complex social engineering frauds requires continuous, real-time data integration and active collaboration between commercial banking institutions, emerging fintech platforms, and telecommunications service providers.
Dr. Rakshit Tandon, Consultant at Cyber Crime HQ, UP Police, and International Cyber Expert, brought a direct law enforcement perspective to the panel, raising severe concerns over the widespread weaponization of compromised personal information. He warned that cybercriminals are aggressively targeting vulnerable demographics—particularly senior citizens and pensioners—by deploying malicious Android Package (APK) files and fraudulent pension verification schemes, pointing out that while criminal syndicates adapt instantly to technical loopholes, formal law enforcement investigations face procedural delays due to jurisdictional boundaries.
The panel concluded with a unified call for real-time inter-agency data sharing, breaking down regulatory silos, and deploying proactive AI defenses to safeguard India’s digital economy.
