The RBI’s directive follows early adoption of the FRI by several major financial institutions, including PhonePe, HDFC Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, India Post Payments Bank, and Paytm
In a move to strengthen defences against cyber-enabled financial fraud, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has directed all Scheduled Commercial Banks, Small Finance Banks, Payments Banks, and Co-operative Banks to integrate the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) developed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) into their systems. The advisory, issued on 30 June, aims to establish a uniform framework for fraud detection across the banking ecosystem.
The FRI is a mobile-number-based risk scoring mechanism launched by the DoT’s Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU) in May 2025. It assigns risk levels—Medium, High, or Very High—to mobile numbers based on intelligence inputs drawn from multiple sources, including the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), DoT’s Chakshu platform, and financial institutions. The risk score enables banks to take preemptive action by flagging, delaying, or rejecting transactions associated with suspicious numbers and triggering more robust authentication procedures.
The RBI’s directive follows early adoption of the FRI by several major financial institutions, including PhonePe, HDFC Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, India Post Payments Bank, and Paytm. These entities have already embedded the tool into their fraud detection systems to proactively respond to mobile numbers linked to cybercrime.
The FRI is part of a broader DoT strategy to incorporate telecom intelligence into India’s financial security infrastructure. This includes API-based integration between bank systems and the DoT’s Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), which supports real-time data exchange and ongoing improvement of fraud detection models. In parallel, the DoT maintains a Mobile Number Revocation List (MNRL), which tracks numbers disconnected due to suspected links to cybercrime, failed verification, or misuse. This list offers an additional layer of risk intelligence to banks and fintech platforms.
Given the widespread adoption of UPI as India’s preferred digital payment method, the government sees this telecom-financial integration as a crucial safeguard. By enabling timely and targeted interventions, the FRI is expected to reduce fraud and improve trust in digital transactions.
The DoT believes the integration of FRI will bolster the goals of the broader Digital India initiative by improving fraud detection, enabling coordinated institutional responses, and building a more resilient digital financial ecosystem. As the FRI becomes more widely adopted, authorities hope it will set a sector-wide standard for risk scoring and cyber fraud prevention across India’s digital economy.