Airtel rolls out AI alerts to curb OTP banking fraud

NEW DELHI: Airtel has unveiled an AI-powered fraud alert system aimed at curbing bank frauds driven by leaked one-time passwords, marking its most aggressive move yet to stop scams at the network level.

The new feature, dubbed Fraud Alert, detects potentially risky situations during live calls and issues real-time warnings when a banking OTP is generated while the customer remains on the line. The intervention is designed to disrupt social engineering scams that rely on urgency and impersonation to extract transaction approvals.

Fraudsters typically exploit routine OTP use, such as for deliveries or service requests, to trick users into sharing banking credentials, draining accounts within minutes. Airtel said its system combines AI-driven intelligence with contextual checks to prompt customers to pause, verify and reconsider before authorising transactions.

Airtel India managing director and CEO Shashwat Sharma, said the operator was working towards becoming a “safe network”, noting that while OTPs remain central to digital security, their effectiveness has been eroded by increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics.

He added that the autonomous, AI-led solution operates proactively at the network layer and has shown strong accuracy during trials in preventing such frauds.

Over the past two years, Airtel has rolled out tools including spam call warnings and malicious link blocking, sharply reducing fraud originating from its network. However, scammers have continued to exploit human behaviour through impersonation and psychological pressure: an attack vector the company says this latest feature directly targets.

The fraud alert system is already live in Haryana and will be rolled out to Airtel’s entire customer base over the next two weeks.