The Reserve Bank of India released a discussion paper on April 9 titled Exploring safeguards in digital payments to curb frauds. The paper proposes a one-hour processing delay for all account-to-account digital transfers exceeding ₹10,000. The cooling-off period would apply across UPI, NEFT, RTGS, debit cards, credit cards, and net banking channels.
The RBI frames the proposal around authorised push payment fraud, where victims are socially engineered into initiating transfers themselves. Transactions above ₹10,000 account for 98.5 percent of total reported fraud value. These transactions represent approximately 45 percent of fraud cases by volume. Users aged 70 and above account for 92 percent of reported fraud value. For this demographic, the paper proposes a separate 24-hour delay on transactions exceeding ₹50,000 with mandatory secondary approval from a designated trusted person.
The paper outlines three additional mechanisms. An annual ₹25 lakh credit cap on bank accounts would target mule account networks by requiring additional business justification to exceed the threshold. A universal kill switch would enable customers to disable all digital payment modes simultaneously. Senders can bypass the cooling-off period by whitelisting trusted beneficiaries or completing additional step-up verification. Public comments are due by May 8, 2026.