Union Government comes up with an AI-based app that helps prevent potential financial risks online

The Hindu

02-07-2025

The Union Government has come up with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) application to help users prevent potential financial risks online.
To create awareness about fraudulent transactions, spam and fraud calls, an innovative feature, Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI), has been developed and successfully tested, according to Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar.
In an exclusive interaction with The Hindu at his camp office, near here, Mr. Chandra Sekhar said, 'The FRI AI app will enable us to profile people based on their historical activities and the complaints that have been received by the police, banks and other institutions. There are 500 institutions in our digital intelligence platform. We take all that data and we indicate whether that person is a very high risk for fraud, or high risk, or medium risk for fraud,' said Mr. Chandra Sekhar.
The government had already run the FRI pilot project with two financial entities — PhonePe and SBI — where two lakh high-risk transactions had been blocked in two weeks.
'When you initiate a transaction to a potential fraud, this app will alert you with a message — this person is a high likely a fraud — to make sure that you verify before sending money. This AI-embedded app is working with 99% predictability. Now, we are going to deploy this platform in all the financial institutions. And, the security aspect is being reviewed every two weeks,' he added.
Sanchar Saathi
This apart, a 'Sanchar Saathi' mobile app was built by the Union Government in 20 languages. It was designed to arrest spam calls, identify lost mobiles, and report fraud calls. 'The app is already launched in English language and will be made available in other languages in a couple of weeks,' he said.
The government was also focused on developing its own technology for telecommunications, and it had already achieved a significant progress in terms of last mile connectivity. 'Ranging from high-speed cable network to telecom towers every nook and corner, there is gigantic effort by the government in the past three years for a giant leap in communications,' Mr. Chandra Sekhar said.
Shearing details, he said there would be revival and rejuvenation of India's national telecommunications company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), with best standards possible.
'The BSNL has turned around, and we are also working on change of culture. So far, it has only 2G and 3G, we now started launching 4G, as decided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build indigenous 4G technology,' he said.
'Private companies have been using imported technology for 4G or 5G. As long as you have money, you can purchase and install the technology, that is an easy project. But, at BSNL, we want to use our own 4G, which has started three years ago. It is a collaboration between private Tejas Networks, TCS and C-DOT, which is a Government of India organisation. The C-DOT has written the software, Tejas developed hardware and TCS integrated all of these,' he said.
'The BSNL is the one executing the entire project. So, whatever the private players have done in 30 to 40 years, our people have to do it in two to three years, which is the challenge,' said Mr. Chandra Sekhar.
Over 1,00,000 towers of 4G had been installed in the last one year to take the initiative forward. As part of rejuvenation, over ₹600 crore worth new batteries, generators and other equipment was procured.
'For BharatNet, we tendered 16 packages to lay ₹1.4 lakh crores worth cables across India. At least in half of circles, the work has started. The initiative facilitates high-speed Internet and TV at ₹400 per household, and there is ₹10,000 subsidy on the upfront cost,' the Union Minister said.