The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has advised all banks to adopt the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) tool developed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to help curb online financial fraud.
The FRI, which operates in real time, classifies mobile numbers based on their association with medium, high, or very high risk of financial fraud. This classification is built on data collected from various sources, including reports from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) under the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), DoT’s Chakshu platform, and intelligence shared by major financial institutions.
Launched in May 2025 by DoT’s Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU), the tool is already in use by leading entities such as PhonePe, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Paytm, and India Post Payments Bank.
