Frauds worth Rs 71,500 crore were perpetrated on Indian banks during 2018-19, the number of frauds rising to 6800 during the year from 5900 a year ago. Significantly, this amount is marginally higher than the Rs 71,000 crore that is promised by the government for recapitalization of public sector banks. And, over 90% of these losses were incurred by the government owned banks. RBI’s annual report said in terms of area of operations, frauds related to advances constituted the preponderant share of the total amount involved in frauds in 2018-19, while the share of frauds in off-balance sheet items declined from a year ago. Frauds relating to card/internet and deposits constituted only 0.3% of the total value of frauds in 2018-19, it added. Most of these frauds were on account of cheating and forgery, followed by misappropriation and criminal breach of trust, RBI said. Small frauds less than Rs 1 lakh were just 0.1% of the amounts involved. The report also brought out that it took banks an average of nearly 2 years to detect frauds. Large frauds above Rs 100 crore took banks nearly 4.5 years to detect, the report said. Nearly Rs 52,000 crore worth of frauds detected were classified as big frauds. RBI said it is in discussions with various agencies including the ministry of corporate affairs to create an interlinked database for fraud monitoring.
