Mumbai: The chairman of the Indian Banks Association, MV Rao, has said that the threefold increase in bank frauds reported in the RBI’s annual reports is largely due to customers being cheated by third parties, not breaches in banking systems. Rao called for increased awareness of early reporting within the `golden hour’ to address these frauds.
According to the RBI annual report, frauds increased from 13564 in FY23 to 36,075. RBI has said that the frauds have occurred predominantly in the category of digital payments (card/internet) in terms of number.
“When you look into the root cause of these frauds, it’s not that they are committed by breaching bank systems, but rather someone has perpetrated the fraud on the bank’s customers. So, at the end of the day, my customer has lost. Ultimately, it is up to the bankers and the industry to see how we can protect the customer’s interests,” said MV Rao, chairman IBA.
Rao was speaking at the inauguration of an online `banks clinic’ launched by the All India Bank Employees Association of India (AIBEA) to advice customers to pursue a grievance with the bank. Rao said that the clinic should work towards creating awareness and time was of the essence in digital frauds. The government has set up the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and a national cyber crime helpline 1930 to report cyber frauds.
Besides providing advice to customers on the way forward, the bank union would also take up customer issues with the bank management. Speakign at the event the general secretary of AIBEA CH Venkatachalam said that the resolution of employee issues and wage revision under the 12th bipartite wage negotiation gave the union more time to focus on customer issues.
“Today, transparency and governance are becoming the main issues. With the launch of the clinic we are becoming more transparent and it will provide insights to the people who are handling the website,” said Rajkiran Rai, MD, NaBFID and former chairman IBA. Rai said that the unions have come a long from resisting computerisation and agreeing only after an additional increment to launching their own tech platform for customer grievances.
