To combat digital fraud, the government has blocked 70 lakh mobile phones due to questionable transactions, according to Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi on Tuesday.
Joshi stated that banks have been instructed to tighten the system and processes in this respect following a conference to review concerns linked to financial cyber security and rising digital payment fraud.
More similar sessions would be held, he added, adding that the next one is slated for January.
He stated that states have been ordered to examine Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) fraud and ensure data protection.
He also stated that there was a debate on merchant KYC standardization.
The conference, presided over by the Financial Services Secretary, also discussed ways to improve collaboration among various authorities to combat cyber crime.
According to Joshi, there is a need to raise awareness about cyber fraud in society in order to safeguard naive customers from being tricked.
During the conference, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre presented the most recent statistics on digital payment fraud recorded in the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), as well as the challenges and concerns encountered in combating such issues.
The meeting was attended by senior officials of the Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Revenue, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and National Payments Corporation of India.
The conference is significant in light of recent digital fraud incidents at UCO Bank and Bank of Baroda.
UCO Bank, a public sector lender located in Kolkata, reported an erroneous credit of Rs 820 crore to account holders via Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) earlier this month.
During the week of November 10-13, the bank noted that, due to technical challenges with IMPS, certain transactions undertaken by holders of other banks resulted in credit to UCO Bank account holders without actual receipt of funds from these banks.
IMPS is an interbank electronic money transfer system that operates in real time with no human interaction.
The bank blocked the recipients’ accounts and has been able to recover Rs 649 crore of the Rs 820 crore, or about 79 per cent of the amount.
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