Commercial banks in India step up their control to check 'mule' fraud

0.5-1% of new accounts opened by mules

Commercial banks in India have stepped up their control mechanism in taking on new current- and savings-accounts customers while enhancing surveillance on the existing ones.

This is in the wake of an increase in the number of “mule accounts” (illegal accounts) in the past six-nine months, bankers said.

In an interaction with managing directors and chief executive officers of public- and private-sector banks earlier this month, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das asked the lenders to step up efforts to tackle mule accounts and also intensify customer awareness and education initiatives, among other measures, to curb digital