AI being weaponised for fraud: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

AI is being weaponised for malpractices and that’s the dark side of the technology, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (October 7, 2025) citing a personal example.

“AI is being weaponised deception and for fraud. I’m not personalising it but I can say I have seen several deepfake videos of myself being circulated online manipulated to mislead citizens, distort facts,” Ms. Sitharaman said speaking at a Fintech event in Mumbai.

“It was a reminder of the urgency with which we must strengthen our defenses. The new generation of fraud is no longer about breaching firewalls,” she said adding that now it was about hacking trust. She said that criminals were using AI to mimic and clone identities and create lifelike videos that can manipulate people.

Speaking about the initiatives of the Government of India in AI the finance minister highlighted the strategies in the technology. “Commissioning of 34,000 GPUs at concessional rates to spur innovation across startup ecosystem, researchers and academic institutions. Launch of the AI, which is India AI Datasets Platform, AI Coach as it is named, incorporating 2,000 plus verified and indigenous datasets, use case across sectors and sandbox environment, supporting development of four foundational elements that cater to India context by supporting vernacular languages and are multi-modal in design. Setting up four centers of excellence and India Future AI Skills Program to boost India’s AI talent pool,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

She spoke about the dollar settlement, that is “transactions in foreign currency by entities in IFSC are currently settled through the correspondent banking arrangements which is routed through different participants and multiple non-strobe banks”.

“Such transactions are not settled on a real-time basis and usually settle with a lag of up to 36-48 hours,” the finance minister said. 

It is to solve this problem that the IFSC has launched the foreign currency settlement system today, she said adding that it facilitates seamless and efficient settlement of foreign currency transactions within IFSC on a real-time basis.

Concluding the speech she gave four messages to the Fintech companies: Focus on fundamentals, grow with responsibility, treat regulations like a safety belt and not a brake and to innovate with inclusion and sustainability.