PSBs report Rs 95,700-crore frauds: Are banking frauds on the rise?

Public sector banks reported frauds of over Rs 95,700 crore in the first six months of the current financial year, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that according to the Reserve Bank of India, PSBs reported 5,743 incidents of fraud involving a total amount of Rs 95,760.49 crore from April 1 to September 30 (based on the date of reporting).

Nirmala Sitharaman told the upper house of parliament that among these 5,743 cases, most of them had taken place over the last several years, although 1,000 cases worth Rs 2,500 crores had just taken place.

State Bank of India reported fraud of ₹25,400 crore followed by Punjab National Bank of ₹10,800 crore and Bank of Baroda of ₹8,300 crore, she said.

In a written reply to another question, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha that government-owned banks reported 26.1 per cent of all frauds worth over Rs 1 lakh brought to notice during 2018-19, while their lending share was 63.81 per cent in the aggregate gross advances of scheduled commercial banks.

For the record, Rs 71,500 crore worth of frauds involving 6,801 cases were detected in financial year 2019. This is little more than what the govt wants to spend on merger of BSNL and MTNL as well as the recapitalisation package for PSBs.

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