New Delhi, June 12 -- The central government has cautioned banks, fintech companies and consumers about the growing use of artificial intelligence in identity-related financial fraud, warning that cybercriminals are deploying deepfakes and synthetic identities to target digital verification systems.

In an advisory issued by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, authorities said advances in AI are enabling fraudsters to create realistic digital replicas that could potentially be used to bypass facial authentication, liveness verification, video-KYC processes and account recovery mechanisms used by financial institutions.

The warning comes as banks and fintech firms increasingly rely on digit...