Tamil Nadu: Banking frauds on the rise

Chennai: ‘Banking just a click away’, ‘Money transfer as easy as sending SMS’, ‘Banking made easy’, or ‘Go Cashless’ are some attractive taglines used by commercial banks in the city to popularise easy online banking techniques. But the concept of secure banking seems to fail with a rise in the number of banking frauds in the city as per the statistics revealed by Chennai City Police on Thursday. In a metropolis that has a large population of educated bank customers, the rise in such frauds calls for increased awareness and strict banking standards.

Ravi Kumar, who is a teacher in a private school and customer of a nationalised bank in Anna Nagar, was asked for OTP generated for bank transactions on a phone call. This was asked  more than 30 times, claiming it was necessary for a bank scheme, but it actually resulted in a loss of around Rs 10 lakhs for Ravi.  It is not only Ravi, who incurred such a loss, but around 150 other bank customers who lost a huge amount of money on these fraudulent calls.

While bank officials express their inability to track these fraudulent activities, a large number of educated customers fall prey to such frauds. “Only if individuals outsource their bank details or OTP to anyone do they lose money. Banks are unaware of why a customer makes a particular transaction,” the official added.

When we contacted bank officials on this, they mention that they regularly broadcast messages through different forms of media to the public, warning them of phishing and other cybercrimes. Bank officials from the State Bank, Indian Bank and ICICI Bank say that they are sending messages and SMS in regional languages to all customers in order to spread awareness of fraudulent practices. On the other hand, customers say that they should be communicated with in case of debit from their accounts before it is carried out. “I lost money after losing my bank details unknowingly to a person, but if the banks can provide a facility of communicating the transaction details and confirming it with the customer, frauds can be prevented,” said G.Dheeraj, a  private bank customer .

However, it is witnessed that with the ease of banking, fraudulent activities like phishing have got a boost on social media.“Immediate response by the banks has to be ensured as soon as such cases are reported. We try to coordinate with banks all over India, as these cases are not restricted within city limits, to recover the amount lost by individuals after the case is registered,” said a senior police official.

SBI points to huge customer network
State Bank of India (SBI), the largest public sector bank of the country, is reported to have the largest number of customers who are victims of banking frauds and the concerns over its banking techniques are surging.

Bank officials call such incidents inevitable owing to the large network of customers throughout the country.

Bank officials say, “We offer banking for all sectors, which includes rural and semi-urban areas, where uneducated people fall prey to these activities easily. We are taking measures to ensure secure banking, but police officials have to keep a check on fraudulent practices”.

SBI officials said that a separate cyber cell keeps a check on all transactions and the support system at any branch can be informed in case of any such activities.