UPI Frauds Cost Indians Rs 485 Crore

In FY24 alone, 1.34 million fraud cases were reported, amounting to losses of Rs 1,087 crore.

Indians have lost Rs 485 crore (Rs 4.85 billion) to frauds on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) across 632,000 reported incidents during the ongoing financial year (2024-25/FY25) until September, according to data from the ministry of finance.

Since 2022-2023, UPI-related frauds have accounted for a cumulative loss of Rs 2,145 crore (Rs 21.45 billion) across 2.7 million reported incidents.

In 2023-2024 (FY24) alone, 1.34 million fraud cases were reported, amounting to losses of Rs 1,087 crore (Rs 10.87 billion).

The rise in UPI-related frauds coincides with the growth in the number of users and the total transactions processed on the real-time payments system.

However, the share of UPI-related fraudulent transactions is minuscule when compared to the cumulative volume and value of transactions processed by the real-time payments system.

In the ongoing financial year (FY25), until September, UPI recorded 85.6 billion transactions amounting to Rs 122 trillion.

In FY24, it processed 131.12 billion transactions with a value of around Rs 200 trillion.

At present, India has a base of over 400 million unique users who use UPI for real-time payments.

The increase in UPI-related frauds follows a similar trajectory to the rise in bank frauds.

The number of bank frauds has more than trebled to 32,363, amounting to Rs 2,714.64 crore (Rs 27.1464 billion) in FY24, compared to 2021-2022, when 8,752 frauds were reported, amounting to Rs 9,298.4 crore (Rs 92.984 billion)

The Reserve Bank of India has implemented the Central Payments Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR), a Web-based payment-related fraud reporting tool since March 2020.

All regulated entities are required to report payment-related frauds to the CPFIR, said Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in response to a question asked in the Lok Sabha.

Victims of cyberfraud incidents, including financial frauds on UPI, can report them on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, as well as the national cybercrime helpline number 1930.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com