Rs. 900 Cr Restored to 3.5 Lakh Victims of Online Frauds: DFS Secretary Chairs Meeting on Cyber Security

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, presented the latest digital payment fraud statistics from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP). The presentation covered various sources of financial fraud, the tactics used by fraudsters, and the challenges faced in countering cybercrimes. Representatives from the State Bank of India (SBI) discussed their Proactive Risk Monitoring (PRM) strategy, while PayTM and Razorpay shared their successful practices in fraud prevention.

In a meeting chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Financial Services (DFS) in New Delhi, participants discussed the readiness of banks and financial institutions to address cybersecurity challenges in the financial services sector. The meeting focused on the increasing trend of digital payment frauds and explored strategies to mitigate cyber-attacks and frauds. During the discussion, it was highlighted that:

1. 70 lakh mobile connections linked to cybercrime or financial fraud have been disconnected through digital intelligence platforms
2. Rs. 900 crore of defrauded funds have been saved, benefiting 3.5 lakh victims.

The meeting, attended by representatives from various government departments, regulatory bodies, and financial institutions, aimed to address concerns related to cyber security and recent incidents of online financial fraud. Participants included officials from the Department of Telecom, Department of Economic Affairs, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and other key stakeholders in the financial sector.

Some of the issues that were discussed included:

1. Renewed focus on facilitating seamless coordination between Police, Banks and Financial Entities for real time tracking and blocking of defrauded money
2. Bringing all financial institutions including NBFCs and major cooperative banks on ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS)’ platform, wherein 259 financial intermediaries are already onboarded
3. Strategy to tackle menace of mule accounts by banks
4. Banks to improve the response time in handling the alerts on online financial frauds received from different agencies
5. Appointment of regional/ state level nodal officers by the banks and financial institutions to cater to the requirements of law enforcement agencies
6. Maintaining a central registry of onboarding of merchants and standardisation of KYC
7. Whitelisting of digital lending apps through consultation with relevant stakeholders
8. Status on implementation of recommendations of the Digital Lending Working Group including setting up of Digital India Trust Agency (DIGITA) and bringing a new legislation ‘Banning of Unregulated Lending Activities (BULA) Act’
9. All stakeholders including banks and financial institutions to undertake more customer awareness and sensitisation programmes on digital payments security

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