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India's central bank plans 1-hr delay for digital payments above Rs10,000 to avoid fraud
There is ‘golden hour’, immediately after the transaction is initiated, when the victim can intervene. It gives the consumer time to verify request or speak to a trusted person
- PUBLISHED: Sun 12 Apr 2026, 4:36 PM
Concerned about the growing number of complaints related to frauds in the country’s hugely popular digital payments system, the Reserve Bank of India is initiating measures to tackle the problem in high-value transactions amounting to over Rs10,000 (about Dh400).
In its discussion paper, ‘Exploring safeguards in digital payments to curb frauds,’ the central bank has four suggestions: lagged credit for authorised push payments (above Rs10,000); additional authentication by a trusted person for high-value digital transactions by the vulnerable including senior citizens, large credits only for accounts with satisfactory additional review, and customer-induced controls.
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“A typical fraud through digital payments may not involve technical compromise of systems, but mostly through manipulation of users through social engineering, coercion, or impersonation,” said the RBI paper.
“Victims, acting under deception, themselves initiate and authenticate transactions, leading to ‘authorised push-payment (APP) frauds. Fraudsters are deploying various tactics, such as bogus call centres, deepfake-driven impersonation scams and mule account networks. Almost all sections of society, especially vulnerable groups such as senior citizens have fallen prey to such APP frauds.”
According to the Indian central bank, there is an urgent need to put in place systems and processes to address these issues.
The discussion paper is open for public comments and feedback till May 8. Citing the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, it said there were 2.8 million frauds reported in 2025, adding up to a whopping Rs230 billion (over Dh9 billion).
While transactions above Rs10,000 account for about 45 per cent of reported fraud cases by volume, they account for almost 98.5 per cent of the total value involved.
“Post-transaction remedies to recover such funds being limited, a defrauded user is often left with a few remedies and uncertain outcomes, which are time-consuming and show low recovery rates,” added the RBI.
However, there is the ‘golden hour’, immediately after the transaction is initiated, when the victim can intervene. It gives the consumer time to reconsider the decision, verify the request or speak to a trusted person.
During the ‘golden hour’, the bank would provisionally debit the customer’s account, but the latter retains the option to cancel the transaction during the 60-minute slot.
Other measures suggested by the RBI include extending customer-controlled safeguards such as transaction limits and on/off switches, along with a ‘kill switch’ that allows the immediate disablement of all transactions in case a fraud is suspected.
The central bank has also suggested an additional verification step for transactions exceeding Rs50,000 (about Dh1,975), and capping annual credits at Rs2.5 million (about Dh98,000) for accounts not having undergone enhanced due diligence.
India’s digital payments ecosystem has emerged as a reference model globally and both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have acknowledged its scale, efficiency and inclusiveness.
