UPI frauds increased by 85% in a year
New Delhi| While on one hand digital payments are increasing in the country, on the other hand frauds related to it are also increasing. UPI payment is at the forefront in digital payment and people are making UPI payment for various tasks ranging from grocery stores to bill payment of expensive restaurants and train ticket booking to hotel booking. The speed with which the use of UPI is increasing, frauds related to UPI are also increasing equally fast. You can understand this from the figure that in the year 2023, the cases of UPI fraud in the country increased by 85%.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, in response to a question in Parliament, reported that UPI fraud cases increased by 85% in the year 2023. He told that where 8,300 crore (8371) in FY 2022-23.There were more than 43 UPI transactions and about 140 (139) of them.15) Lakh Crore transactions took place, in 2023-24 the figure was 13,100 (13,112 respectively.96) more than crore and close to 200 (199.96) was lakh crore rupees. Similarly, 7 of UPI fraud in FY 2022-23.2 lakhs (7.There were more than 25 lakh cases in which people lost Rs 573 crore, the number of UPI fraud cases in 2023-24 was 13.4 lakhs (13.42 lakhs) and a total of Rs 1,087 crores were duped from people. That is, in one year, the cases of UPI fraud increased by about 85%. At the same time, the number of cases of UPI fraud in the current financial year (2024-25) as of September 2024 is 6.3 (6.32) were lakhs and a total of Rs 485 crores were defrauded.
However, the Minister of State for Finance also said that strong measures are being taken to stop the increasing UPI fraud. The Reserve Bank started the Central Payment Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR) from March 2020 which is a web based registry giving information about fraud related to payments. All Regulated Units (REs) have to provide information about payment fraud in this registry.
He also informed that the Government, Reserve Bank and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have taken several initiatives from time to time to prevent payment related frauds including UPI fraud. These include device binding between the customer’s mobile number and the device, two-factor authentication through PIN, daily transaction limit etc. Apart from this, NPCI has provided a fraud monitoring solution to all the banks which alerts them to prevent fraud through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning based model and enables them to reject transactions.
The Reserve Bank and banks are also running awareness campaigns regarding cyber crime through short SMS, radio campaigns, and publicity. Also the Home Ministry has launched a National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercreme.Gov.In) and has also started the National Cyber Crime Helpline Number-1930. Customers can complain about fraud on customer care websites or branches of banks. Apart from this, the Department of Telecommunications has also launched a facility named Sanchar Sathi Portal (Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) on https://sancharsaathi।gov।in) and ‘Chakshri’ to complain about suspicious calls, or messages etc. related to fraud.
