ICICI Bank’s new ad with Tabu cautions against UPI frauds

UPI pin is only required to send payments and not to receive them, highlights the actor in the ad-film.   

As per the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), more than 1,40,000 unified payments interface (UPI) fraudulent activities were reported on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) during the first and second quarters of 2022.

According to the Reserve Bank of India, UPI transactions increased by 1200% in the fiscal year ending September 2022. Given the massive increase in transaction volumes on the UPI platform, UPI fraud now accounts for a significant number of cyber fraud incidents in the country.

ICICI Bank’s new ad-film titled #BeatTheCheats is an attempt to make the users aware of these ramped UPI scams. The ad shows a coaching centre where students are taught how to con innocent people on the internet. The scam centre’s student approaches a lady who is trying to sell a refrigerator online and asks her to fill in her UPI pin to receive the advance payment for the same.

When the lady on the call becomes suspicious and asks if the caller wishes to see the refrigerator once before making the payment, the coach interferes and makes up a story to further convince her to give in her UPI pin. Cut to the next scene, actor Tabu (also the lady on the call) makes an entry with a team of police and raids the fraudsters’ camp.

The ad-film closes with a message that UPI pin is only used to send payments and not when one wants to receive money. The ad starts with a slightly light note while ends on a serious tone when Tabu delivers the 10 seconds monologue to highlight the gravity of the situation.

The casting of Tabu for the ad-film is also interesting and well-timed because she has recently played the role of a cop in Drishyam 2 and the movie is currently out in the theatres.

Other banks like HDFC bank have also come up with similar campaigns in the past which aims to make users aware of the perils of digital payments. HDFC Bank used the character ‘Vigil Aunty’ played by Former VJ, Anuradha Menon aka Lola Kutty that cautioned people against different kinds of banking frauds.