The Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) developed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has stopped more than 48 lakh fraudulent transactions since it was launched in May 2025, saving Indian citizens from losses worth over ₹140 crore.
The DoT highlighted FRI’s success in the backdrop of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between DoT and the Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) on Thursday. As part of the MoU, DoT will share data from its FRI and Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL), while FIU-IND will provide details of mobile numbers linked to suspicious transactions, money mule accounts, and cyber fraud cases.
“The idea is to stop the crime at its source, preventing citizens from unknowingly handing over their hard-earned money to fraudsters. The focus now is on empowering users, rather than chasing fraudsters after the damage is done,” a DoT official told HT. They added that through the FRI system, the DoT is identifying and categorizing nearly 4,000 to 5,000 fraudulent numbers as high or very high risk every day.
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The government introduced FRI in May this year. It is a risk-based metric that classifies a mobile number to have been associated with Medium, High, or Very High risk of financial fraud. How does it work? For example, if a user tries to make a payment on PhonePe and the number is flagged as ‘medium risk’ by FRI, the app will show a pop-up warning that DoT has marked the number as suspicious, advising caution. If the number is marked ‘high’ or ‘very high risk,’ the transaction can be blocked altogether by the bank or the app.
What’s the difference between a high-risk and a very high-risk number? According to the official, it depends on the bank or UPI app. Some choose to block transactions for both categories, while others block only for very high-risk numbers. FRI itself is just an indicator. Whether a transaction is blocked, declined, or shown as a warning is left to the banks and service providers to decide.
The FRI system is part of DoT’s Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), which shares real-time information with over 650 banks and financial institutions. However, only 50+ of these banks, financial institutions, and payment apps, including Google Pay, Paytm, PhonePe, HDFC Bank, Canara Bank, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, and Cashfree Payments, have integrated FRI into their systems through APIs.
DoT is of the view that with UPI now the go-to way to pay across India, FRI could help millions of people avoid falling into cyber fraud traps. DoT’s systems like Sanchar Saathi and FRI have already disconnected 2.84 crore fraudulent SIMs, the press release said on Thursday.
The Reserve Bank of India in June issued an advisory directing all Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payments Banks, and Co-operative Banks to mandatorily integrate the FRI into their systems. DoT called it “a watershed moment in the fight against cyber-enabled financial frauds and a testament to the power of inter-agency collaboration in safeguarding citizens in India’s growing digital economy.”