India's Axis Bank says no loss from cyber attack

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Axis Bank Ltd, India's third-biggest private sector lender by assets, said on Wednesday there was no loss to its customers from a recent cyber attack.

"Our internal monitoring mechanism identified such a threat recently and all steps have been undertaken to neutralize the same," the bank said in a statement to Reuters.

India's Economic Times newspaper, which first reported the news, said the bank filed a preliminary report about the breach to the regulator, Reserve Bank of India, and that it had hired EY to carry out an investigation.

"As a responsible financial institution, we proactively communicate potential threats to the regulator," the bank said in the statement, adding that it had a large team of information technology professionals who monitor its systems and mitigate any threat.

Separately, State Bank of India, the nation's top lender by assets, said on Wednesday it had blocked cards of certain customers, and was issuing them new cards, in "precautionary" measures after being informed of potential risks to those cards.

The issue was not specific to SBI, the bank said.

"Card network companies NPCI, MasterCard and Visa had informed various banks in India about a potential risk to some cards... owing to a data breach," said SBI, adding that its own systems had not been compromised.

Cyber attacks on banks and financial services firms have been on the rise worldwide.

In July, state-run Union Bank of India Ltd said one of the bank's offshore accounts was breached in a cyber attack, but the money trail was traced and the movement of funds was blocked.

Some $81 million was stolen from the Bangladesh central bank account with the New York Fed this year in one of the biggest-ever cyber heists.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)