dna impact: Banks sometimes don't report frauds, says Raghuram Rajan

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has promised action against the guilty in the cheating and forgery cases that have led to the loss of Rs 27,000 crore in the last five years.

He was reacting to a report, 'Banks no safe havens for your money,' front-paged by dna on April 8. He told ZEE Business that "we will examine the matter and book the culprits".

"Frauds do happen - both small and big. We need to tackle them, otherwise frauds will increase," he said.

"We need to find out how it happens. We have to do in a sensible way. Sometimes banks don't report frauds. We are working on how to improve banks and will keep looking at frauds," said Rajan.

dna had reported how cheating and forgery have led to public and private sector banks losing as much as Rs 27,000 crore cumulatively in the last five years. The information was obtained by dna under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Several thousands of depositors have lost their money, and, in a majority of cases, recovery did not happen.

Even this is just a conservative estimate with actual losses being several thousand crores. More than 11,500 cases of cheating and forgery cases involving Rs 1 lakh and above were reported by banks to RBI.