The scope of digital payments in India has increased rapidly, but with it the risks of cyber fraud have also increased. Recently, a report by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has shockingly revealed that one out of every three UPI transactions in the country is still outside the fraud protection mechanism. The reason for this is that Google Pay has not yet implemented the government’s Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) tool in its system.
What is Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI)?
FRI is a technical tool developed by DoT to classify mobile numbers and accounts according to their fraud risk level. This tool tells you before any transaction whether the number or account falls in the “low”, “medium” or “high risk” category. If the risk is high, the transaction may be stopped or the user is warned. Its purpose is to protect people from increasing phishing and scams in online payments.
Question on Google Pay
According to DoT officials, Google Pay handles about 30 to 35 percent of the total UPI transactions in the country. But it has not yet implemented FRI. This means that millions of transactions are being completed every month without any government fraud protection checks.
Google India’s Public Policy Head Rajesh Ranjan said that the company is discussing with DoT to implement FRI, but at present this integration has not happened. He said that Google already has its AI based fraud prevention system ‘DigiKavach’, which works to identify suspicious activities.
Other companies adopted security systems
In contrast, other leading UPI companies like PhonePe and Paytm have integrated the FRI tool into their systems. According to DoT, with the help of this tool, these companies have prevented potential fraud worth crores of rupees. PhonePe has so far saved around ₹125 crore, while Paytm has saved customers from scams worth ₹68 crore.
RBI instructions and increasing cyber threat
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had directed all banks and payment companies to implement the FRI system in June 2025. RBI says that this step is necessary for the security of digital financial transactions in the country.
According to DoT, while about 10.29 lakh cyber fraud cases were registered in the country in 2022, this figure reached 22.68 lakh in 2024. The government has so far blocked around 9.4 lakh SIM cards and 2.6 lakh IMEI numbers in fraud-related cases.
