Finance Ministry Takes Cognizance Of Digital Payment Fraud, Calls Meeting Of Bankers

The Union finance ministry has called a meeting of the representatives of Reserve Bank Of India and senior bankers on Tuesday to discuss ways to counter increasing digital payment fraud and cyber security issues. 

The meeting is scheduled to be chaired by Union Finance Secretary. He will discuss important issues related to financial cyber security and increasing digital payment fraud, sources said.

During the meeting, Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre will present the latest statistics of digital payment frauds, that are detected in National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), including challenges and issues faced in countering such issues.

Senior officials of the Department of Revenue, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Telecom, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and National Payments Corporation of India might be present in the meeting.

The meeting has a lot of significance in view of digital fraud witnessed by UCO Bank and Bank of Baroda in the recent past.

During this month, public sector lender UCO Bank has also reported an erroneous transfer of Rs 820 crore to account holders of the bank using Immediate Payment Service (IMPS).

From 10 November to 13 November, due to some unknown issues in IMPS, certain transactions prompted by holders of other banks have resulted in transferring of funds to the account holders in UCO Bank without receiving the receipt of money from these banks, the bank observed.

The bank has blocked the recipients' accounts for the time being and has been able to recover the amount of Rs 649 crore of the Rs 820 crore or about 79 per cent of the amount. The state-owned bank has not clarified whether this was a technical glitch, human error or a hacking attempt.

However, the bank has informed about the matter to the law enforcement agencies for necessary action.