RBI proposes one-hour delay on high-value digital transfers to curb fraud

Mumbai: The Reserve Financial institution of India on Thursday launched a dialogue paper proposing a collection of measures to deal with the sharp rise in digital fee fraud, together with a compulsory time lag on sure financial institution transfers, additional authentication for senior residents making massive transactions, caps on suspicious accounts, and a one-click “kill swap” for patrons to immediately freeze all digital funds. Feedback on the paper are open till Could 8, 2026.

The centrepiece proposal is a one-hour delay on account-to-account transfers above Rs 10,000 made by people, sole proprietors, or partnership companies — transactions the place there is no such thing as a chargeback mechanism if fraud happens. The delay may very well be utilized on the sender’s finish, the receiver’s finish, or each. The Rs 10,000 threshold is deliberate, as such transactions account for round 45% of fraud instances by quantity and symbolize almost 98.5% of whole fraud worth, in keeping with information from the Nationwide Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP).

For senior residents and individuals with disabilities, the RBI has proposed a further layer of verification for transfers above Rs 50,000, probably requiring approval from a pre-designated trusted individual. Practically 92% of fraud losses by worth happen above this threshold, usually by means of social engineering and impersonation scams.

The RBI has additionally proposed giving clients higher management over their very own accounts by means of channel-wise on and off switches, self-set transaction limits, and a kill swap to immediately disable all digital funds, accessible through cellular banking, web banking, branches, or IVR programs.

To crack down on “mule” accounts that are financial institution accounts utilized by fraudsters to obtain and launder stolen funds — the RBI has proposed capping annual credit at Rs 25 lakh for accounts that haven’t undergone enhanced due diligence. Accounts searching for larger limits would want to supply extra verification of their enterprise profile and funding sources.

The proposals come towards the backdrop of an explosion in each digital funds and fraud. Whereas digital fee volumes have grown at a compound annual fee of 53% over the previous decade, reported fraud instances have surged from 2.6 lakh in 2021 to twenty-eight lakh in 2025 — with the worth of fraud leaping from Rs 551 crore to almost Rs 22,931 crore over the identical interval, pushed by deepfakes, faux name centres, and mule account networks.