The mid-level bank frauds – one between Rs1,00,000 and 25,00,000 - have nearly tripled in the last five years, the Reserve Bank of India’s reply to an RTI application said. Banks reported a 177% increase in frauds at £2.39 billion, up from £864.9 million in 2013. In the last one year, frauds have grown 30% from £1.87 million in 2016.
In 2015, PNB had accounted for 11% of total banking frauds. The same set of information was requested under RTI for 2016 and 2017, but the RBI said ‘bank-wise data on fraud is not available for disclosure under Section 28 of Banking Regulation Act, 1949’.
Frauds from Mumbai have been increasing in the last five years, with Maharashtra now accounting for 41% of total banking frauds in 2017, up from 35% in 2013. When it came to number of fraudulent cases (y-o-y), there has been an 8% increase at 5,078 cases registered in 2017, compared to 4,693 cases in 2016. Chandigarh sees the most high-value frauds in the country - the amount of the scam being much more with respect to the number of cases being registered - resulting in a loss of over £5.5 million.
Maharashtra and Karnataka saw frauds of about £850,000 per case - higher than the national average of £470,000 being lost in every case. States like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu saw more low-value frauds with average being just over £300,000, and £100,000 being lost in the respective states. Delhi sees the bank on average losing nearly £500,000 for every fraudulent case reported.
Credit rating agency Experian said scams through loan accounts are on a rise due to false contact information being provided by applicants. “Identity theft or creation of fictitious identities continues to contribute around 75% of all detected fraud cases. But one noticeable difference is fraud by repeated offenders has declined. We would attribute this to institutions putting more processes in place to check historical fraud profiles and improved detection techniques,” said Mohan Jeyaram from Experian.
