GPay hasn’t integrated fraud flag on platform: DoT

Google Pay has not yet integrated the government's Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), a system that flags mobile numbers based on their likelihood of being linked to financial scams, onto its platform, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary Neeraj Mittal said on Friday.

- Sejal Sharma

Developed by the DoT, the FRI classifies phone numbers by risk level to help digital payment platforms detect and block fraudulent transactions. When users attempt payments through digital platforms, medium-risk numbers trigger warning popups advising caution. High and very high-risk classifications can result in complete transaction blocks.

According to a DoT official, the idea of FRI is to stop financial fraud at its source. “With Google Pay yet to integrate the FRI into its payment system, roughly a third of Indians using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) remain unprotected. Google Pay accounts for about 30-35% of all UPI transactions on an average,” the official said on anonymity, adding that its competitors, PhonePe and Paytm, have already integrated the FRI into their payment services.