New Delhi: State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, along with Bank of Baroda (BoB), will spearhead the creation of a digital payments intelligence platform designed to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions across banks in real time.
All 12 state-run banks are expected to pick up equity stakes in the proposed entity, to be called the Indian Digital Payment Intelligence Corporation (IDPIC), people familiar with the matter told ET.
IDPIC will be set up as a Section 8 company with an authorised capital of ₹500 crore and paid-up capital of ₹200 crore.
“Initially two senior executives from SBI and BoB will join this firm as directors,” a bank executive said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given its nod for the proposed company’s articles of association, he added.
SBI has agreed to an initial funding of Rs 10 crore, another senior bank executive said. “Bank of Baroda will also put in the same amount, and almost all banks are on board and will pick up a stake in the firm,” he added.
An email sent to SBI did not receive any response till press time.
BoB could not be immediately reached for comment.
Boosting risk management
“The name for the firm, as recommended by the finance ministry, has been submitted to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for name reservation,” the second executive quoted above said.
This is a major push to strengthen risk management in the system as bank frauds remain a major threat amid increasing digital transactions in the country. The amount involved in bank frauds nearly tripled to Rs 36,014 crore in the year ended March from Rs 12,230 crore in FY24, according to RBI data.
At present, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the home affairs ministry, acts as a nodal point for curbing cybercrimes.
Banks are also using MuleHunter.AI, an AI/ML-driven model developed by the RBI, to strengthen the detection and monitoring of mule accounts.
‘Mule accounts’ refer to bank accounts used by criminals to launder illicit money, often by tricking individual account holders to lend their accounts.
Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and AU Small Finance Bank are among banks that have implemented MuleHunter.AI.
Earlier this month, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar said the banking regulator is implementing the digital payments intelligence platform and the actual prototype is being developed by its innovation hub.
“An entity is being set up to run this. The basic idea is to collect information from multiple sources—mule accounts, telecom, geographical location, and more—and train an AI system on this data,” he had said.
The move follows recommendations by a committee headed by former NPCI chairman A P Hota, which proposed the creation of the Digital Payments Intelligence Platform (DPIP) as part of India’s digital public infrastructure to bolster payment security.
