Parliament Question: UPI fraud cases

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF FINANCE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3610 ANSWERED ON TUESDAY, 24 MARCH, 2026/ CHAITRA 3, 1947 (SAKA) UPI FRAUD CASES 3610. SMT. RANJEET RANJAN: SHRI HARIS BEERAN: SHRI SHAKTISINH GOHIL: Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state: (a) the total number of reported fraud cases on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform since 2022, with the total value of losses to users and the categories of fraud involved, year-wise; (b) the steps taken since 2022 to strengthen fraud detection and prevention mechanisms on UPI, including safeguards adopted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI); (c) the timeline of policy actions or guideline changes planned after the High Court notice dated February 2026 on UPI fraud safeguards; and (d) the rationale for fixing the proposed digital payment fraud compensation limit by RBI? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE (SHRI PANKAJ CHAUDHARY) (a) With increasing digital payment transactions in the country, incidences of fraudulent practices including Unified Payments Interface (UPI) frauds have also gone up in the last few years. As informed by Reserve bank of India(RBI), the details of UPI payment frauds reported in the country during the last five financial years are as below. Financial Year No. of incidents (in Lakhs) Amount Involved (₹ Crore) 2021-22 4.07 242.00 2022-23 7.25 573.00 2023-24 13.42 1,087.00 2024-25 12.64 981.00 2025-26* 16.29 1226.37 *Till 15th March 2025 (b) In order to strengthen fraud detection, various initiatives have been taken up by the Government, RBI and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). These, inter alia, include device binding between the customer's mobile number and device, two-factor authentication through PIN, daily transaction limits, and restrictions on use cases. Further, NPCI also provides a fraud monitoring solution to all the banks to generate alerts and decline transactions using AI/ML-based models and facilitation of real-time APIs to I4C (MHA) for tracking fraud accounts & facilitating bank to take action. Moreover, RBI and banks have been conducting awareness campaigns through short SMS, radio campaigns, and publicity on the prevention of cyber-crime.(c) No such notice has yet been received. (d) RBI has informed that it has issued the extant instructions on limiting liability of customers in unauthorized electronic banking transactions in 2017. However, in view of the rapid adoption of technology in the banking sector and payments systems, RBI reviewed its existing instructions and the revised instructions, including a compensation mechanism in case of small value fraudulent electronic banking transactions, have been issued for public/stakeholders’ consultation on March 06, 2026. *****