The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance cooperation in tackling the misuse of telecom resources in securities market frauds and investment scams. The agreement was signed by Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Deputy Director General of the AI and Digital Intelligence Unit at DoT, and Sandip Pradhan, Whole Time Member at SEBI, in the presence of Deb Kumar Chakrabarti, Member (Services) of the Digital Communications Commission. The partnership aims to establish channels for intelligence exchange between telecom authorities and financial market regulators.

Under the arrangement DoT will share the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator to help identify mobile numbers associated with suspicious patterns and will provide the Mobile Number Revocation List automatically to SEBI and regulated entities including brokers and asset managers. SEBI will reciprocate by supplying information on telecom resources linked to accounts involved in cyber fraud, impersonation and money mule activities so that swift action can be taken in the telecom domain. The intelligence exchange will operate through DoT's Digital Intelligence Platform which connects more than 1,400 stakeholders and supports real time dissemination of actionable information.

The initiative is intended to shift responses from reactive enforcement to proactive prevention by integrating telecom intelligence with market surveillance systems. The Financial Fraud Risk Indicator will draw on inputs from DoT's Chakshu facility under Sanchar Saathi, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies to act as an early warning system for potentially fraudulent mobile connections. Under Sanchar Saathi more than 8.8 mn fraudulent mobile connections have been disconnected using ASTR and its deployment helped prevent financial losses of approximately Rs23 bn in the past ten months.

Going forward the MoU will facilitate the development of standard operating procedures for coordinated action and enable the institutional sharing of red flag indicators to improve response times. Continued engagement and adaptive mechanisms will be pursued to counter evolving cyber threats and to strengthen investor protection. Officials view the collaboration as a step to enhance trust in the digital and financial ecosystem.