Alarming rise in banking frauds, warns RBI

It adds that banks could be hiding some of the fraud cases, masking these as bad debt

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) financial stability report (FSR) has warned that frauds in the banking system were rising alarmingly.

And banks could be hiding some of the fraud cases, masking these as bad debt. “Almost all corporate loan- related fraud cases get seasoned for two to three years as NPAs (non-performing assets) before they are reported as fraud,” it said.

In the past five years, it says, the volume of fraud rose 19.6 per cent, from 4,235 to 5,064. The value (loss incurred) rose 72 per cent, from Rs 9,750 crore to Rs 16,770 crore. The share in the advances