April-June saw 35% more UPI frauds since quarter ended March this year

UPI frauds accounted for majority (35.4 per cent) of the total cyber crime complaints (2.37 lakh) reported in the second quarter of 2022

Representative image. Credit: iStock Photo

Over the last two years, the UPI-based payment has made its way to nearly every single smartphone in India. The Covid-19 pandemic fuelled the switch from cash to digital payments and the convenience - in paying for a Uber ride or for tea at a roadside stall - lured increasing number of people towards it.

UPI or Unified Payments Interface is a real-time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) facilitating inter-bank peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant transactions.

In October, the number UPI-based transactions jumped 7.7 per cent from a month ago to 730 crore. The total value of transactions stood at Rs 4,451.87 crore in October as against Rs 4,244.76 crore in September.

The UPI-based payment system, however, has also lured many fraudsters. According to data from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), the number of complaints about UPI frauds jumped nearly 35 per cent in three months. The portal received 84,145 complaints regaring UPI frauds in the second quarter (April-June) of 2022 compared to 62,350 in the first quarter (January-March) of the year.

UPI frauds accounted for majority (35.4 per cent) of the total cyber crime complaints (2.37 lakh) reported in the April-June quarter of 2022.

Source: Cyber Pravaha (Fifth Quarterly Issue)

The NCRP saw a rise of 15.3 per cent in reported complaints during the April-June quarter (2.37 lakh) of 2022 compared to the January-March quarter (2.06 lakh) of the financial year.

"The Online Financial Fraud, a cyber crime category under NCRP, is the most prevalent among others, as 67.9 per cent of the total reported cyber crime were Online Financial Frauds," the Ministry of Home Affairs report noted.

The online financial frauds were followed by online and social media-related crimes (13.4 per cent).

Taking ognisance of a sharp rise digital payments frauds, the NPCI last year had launched 'UPI-Help' on the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) UPI to provide a simple grievance resolution mechanism. Using the BHIM UPI app, a user can 'raise a complaint' related to a particular transaction.