Cyber Enabled Financial Fraud in the Digital Payments Era: A Qualitative Content Analysis

Abstract

Cyber enabled financial fraud has expanded alongside the mainstreaming of digital payments,
online banking, and platform mediated communication, producing high volume victimisation
that often relies on deception and social engineering rather than advanced technical intrusion.
While policy and institutional responses increasingly emphasise rapid reporting and
coordinated action, there is limited systematic research on how authoritative texts frame harm,
victimhood, responsibility, and remedy. This study applies qualitative content analysis to a
purposive corpus of 20 governance and institutional response documents drawn primarily from
India, including regulatory instruments, incident reporting directives, policing advisories, and
citizen facing reporting guidance, supplemented by selected global benchmark reports for
contextual comparison. Using a directed coding frame with inductive refinement, the analysis
examines problem definitions, harm framing, victim positioning, reporting pathway
construction, institutional responsibility allocation, coordination expectations, and remedy
narratives.