RBI to set up digital payments intelligence platform to prevent fraud

The Reserve Bank has constituted a committee under the Chairmanship of former MD and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India,. A P Hota to examine various aspects of setting up a digital public infrastructure for Digital Payments Intelligence Platform. According to an official statement, RBI is mulling to set up a Digital Payments Intelligence Platform to mitigate payment fraud risks. The Committee is expected to give its recommendations within two months.
RBI has said that even though the payment ecosystem which includes banks, NPCI, card networks, payment aggregators, and payment apps take various measures on an ongoing basis to protect customers from digital frauds, there is a need for network-level intelligence and real-time data sharing across payment systems to prevent such frauds in the future."Growing instances of digital payment frauds highlight the need for a system-wide approach to prevent and mitigate such frauds," said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. "It is, therefore, proposed to establish a digital payments intelligence platform for network-level intelligence and real-time data sharing across the digital payments ecosystem."
In the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), as many as 36,075 digital frauds were reported in banks, marking an increase of nearly 166 per cent from the 13,564 cases reported in FY23. The amount involved in these frauds decreased by 46.7 per cent, dropping to Rs 13,930 crore from Rs 26,127 crore in FY23, according to the RBI's annual report last month.An analysis of bank group-specific fraud cases over the past three years shows that while the private sector reported a higher number of frauds, public sector banks accounted for the highest total fraud amount. Most fraud cases have occurred within the realm of digital payments, particularly involving cards and internet transactions, both in terms of frequency and monetary value.