Several AI initiatives taken by the apex statutory body of chartered accountants—The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)—may reduce financial losses to citizens due to digital frauds by up to 25% soon. “ICAI is closely working with its clients, law enforcement agencies, police administration and the Economic Offices Wing to detect and prevent frauds,” ICAI said. The move assumes a lot of significance as it is estimated that the quantum of financial frauds may grow multi-fold to ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2025.

The institute said that with the kind of fraud prevention outreach with the multidisciplinary agencies and artificial intelligence-based interventions which ICAI has now taken up with the clients, the losses on account of financial frauds may come down significantly. “Our initiatives will help reduce financial loss from frauds by 25% soon,” ICAI said.

“We are leveraging artificial intelligence to prevent online frauds. This can be done by knowledge sharing and empowering the CAs to empower the clients through education. We must ensure financial security through financial literacy,” ICAI added.

The CA body said that even though fewer senior citizens fall victim to fraud, the amount of money lost in each case is usually high.

According to the institute, awareness is key in matters pertaining to this. It points out that even though senior citizen clients are more prone to financial frauds, the level of their response to such outreach is slightly lower.

It may be noted that the financial losses may grow multi-fold to ₹1.2 lakh crore in 2025 according to the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), against losses worth ₹22,845 crore in 2024. Instances of cybercrimes like digital arrests, OTP frauds, courier frauds, and duping innocent people of their life's savings have gone through the roof.

The number of financial frauds has gone up to 36.37 lakh in 2024, compared with 24.42 lakh in 2023, according to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP).