Improved detection, reporting bring down bank fraud cases: MoS Finance

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Parliament was informed on Monday. Sharing data, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said bank frauds have declined from Rs 77,544 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,650 crore in 2022-23.

Comprehensive steps, including measures to address security flaws/loopholes and to strengthen the fraud risk management mechanism in banks, have been taken by the government, RBI and public sector banks (PSBs), Karad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. Some of the measures include an online searchable database of frauds reported by banks, in the form of the Central Fraud Registry has been set up to enable timely identification, control and mitigation of fraud risk and also to carry out due diligence during the credit sanction process and heads of PSBs have been empowered to issue requests for issuance of Look-Out circulars.

Besides, he said a National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal has been launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs to enable the public to report incidents on all types of cybercrimes and a toll-free number has also been operationalised to get assistance in lodging online complaints. In addition, he said the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, has been enacted to provide for attachment of property of a fugitive economic offender, confiscation of such offender's property and disentitlement of the offender from defending any civil claim.

Directorate of Enforcement (ED), the agency mandated for the investigation and prosecution of cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), has apprised that it has recorded 757 cases involving bank fraud in public and private sector banks under the provisions of PMLA in the last ten years and 36 cases in the current year, Karad said. It has been noticed that in 10