The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector experiences a sharp rise in marketing and lead generation efforts during Q1 and Q2, driven by consumer demand for tax-saving investments, insurance, and loans. However, this seasonal uptick also brings a surge in fake lead generation, banking frauds, KYC frauds, and financial fraud.
Between April and January of FY25, India reported a sharp increase in digital financial fraud, with losses reaching ₹4,245 crore across 2.4 million cases, according to data shared by the Ministry of Finance.
This marked a 67% rise compared to FY23, when losses totaled ₹2,537 crore from 2 million reported incidents. In FY24, fraud-related losses were slightly higher at ₹4,403 crore, spread across 2.8 million cases highlighting a persistent and growing threat, even with ongoing efforts to strengthen fraud prevention.
This growing trend underscores the urgent need for robust lead validation in the BFSI space.
Sophisticated Fraud Tactics Currently Plaguing the Industry
KYC Frauds
Stolen or synthetic identities are used to pass KYC checks, resulting in regulatory risks and wasted acquisition costs.
OTP Bypass
OTP-based verification is a common layer of security in lead forms. However, advanced scripts and bots automate OTP entry, bypassing this defense and flooding systems with invalid leads.
Disposable Numbers
Fraudsters increasingly rely on temporarily active numbers to complete lead forms to pass initial security checks but are unreachable for callbacks or follow-ups, leading to dead ends.
Bot-Generated Leads
Automated bots emulate human behavior by filling out forms, clicking ads, and skewing attribution metrics, wasting paid media budgets.
Identity Theft
This involves using real individuals’ personal details often obtained through phishing or data breaches to submit fake leads. These often go undetected until serious harm is done.
The Real Cost of Fake Leads
Fake leads don’t just waste budget – they distort ROI, damage brand credibility, and mislead campaign optimization. Paid campaigns that attract invalid leads inflate customer acquisition costs without delivering real conversions. Sales teams spend time on unreachable or disinterested contacts, impacting productivity and morale.
Moreover, fake interactions skew campaign analytics, leading marketers to make flawed optimization decisions based on inaccurate data. In a highly regulated sector like BFSI, engaging with fake or unverified leads poses serious compliance and reputational risks, including audits, penalties, and regulatory fallout.
How mFilterIt Protects BFSI Brands from Fake Leads
As digital financial fraud continues to escalate, BFSI brands need more than just conventional lead validation filters to effectively combat fake leads.
mFilterIt’s ad fraud detection solution offers real-time lead validation, device fingerprinting, and full-funnel visibility to help BFSI brands stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics.
Our solution evaluates every lead through heuristic, deterministic, and behavioral models, filtering out invalid or suspicious entries instantly. This ensures that only genuine, conversion-ready leads reach your CRM.
What sets Valid8 apart is the proprietary lead scoring engine, which ranks leads by intent – high, moderate, or low – using rich behavioral and attribution data. This allows marketers to focus on high-quality leads and optimize campaigns for better out comes. With Valid8, brands can cut waste, protect ROI, and maintain compliance – all while improving lead quality.
Conclusion: It’s Time to Validate, Not Just Generate
As fraud becomes more complex, BFSI marketers must shift from merely generating leads to validating them. mFilterIt empowers you to eliminate fake leads, optimize ad spend, and safeguard your marketing efforts.
Discover how Valid8 can protect your lead pipeline. Contact us today to schedule a demo.
