PSBs have reported Rs 95,700-crore frauds in first 6 months of FY20: FM

FM Sitharaman says 5,743 incidents in govt banks from April to September this year

Public sector banks (PSBs) 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 (RBI), 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). She said based on the date of occurrence of frauds, during the same period, the number of frauds was 1,007, involving a total amount of Rs 2,509.86 crore.

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.

“On this basis, the (average) number of incidents of frauds reported (based on the date of occurrence) per lakh crore advances for PSBs (11.3) is about 79 per cent lower than that for non-PSB lenders (53.7),” Thakur said. ICICI Bank reported 374 instances of frauds, followed by Kotak Mahindra Bank (338), HDFC Bank (273), State Bank of India (236) and HSBC (178).

In reply to a question by the Congress’ M V Rajeev Gowda on the status of cases investigated by the Enforcement Directorate, Thakur said that as on September 30, the agency was conducting investigations in 963 cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and 7,393 cases under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).