The amount involved in bank frauds jumped 73.8 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to ₹71,543 crore in 2018-19, against ₹41,167 crore in 2017-18, according to the RBI’s latest annual report.

The central bank said the increased amount involved in frauds was mostly related to occurrences in earlier years.

The average lag between the date of occurrence and its detection by banks was 22 months. The average lag for large frauds – ₹100 crore and above, amounting to ₹52,200 crore reported during 2018-19 – was 55 months.

The number of cases of frauds reported by banks increased by 15 per cent y-o-y in 2018-19 to 6,801 against 5,916 in 2017-18.

Among bank groups, PSBs, which constitute the largest market share in lending, have accounted for the bulk of frauds (at 90.2 per cent of total fraud amount) reported in 2018-19.

It was followed by private sector banks (7.7 per cent) and foreign banks (1.3 per cent).

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In terms of area of operations, frauds related to advances constituted the preponderant share (shooting up to 90.2 per cent in 2018-19 against 54.8 per cent in 2017-18) of the total amount involved in frauds, while the share of frauds in off-balance sheet items declined to 7.7 per cent from 39.6 per cent from a year ago.

In terms of the number of frauds, too, those related to advances were predominant (53 per cent), followed by card/internet-related frauds (27.4 per cent) and deposit-related (8.8 per cent) frauds.

Frauds relating to card/internet and deposits constituted only 0.1 per cent (0.3 per cent in 2017-18) of the total value of frauds in 2018-19. Cheating and forgery was the major component, followed by misappropriation and criminal breach of trust.

Fraud cases involving an amount of less than ₹1 lakh (small value frauds) were only 0.1 per cent of the total amount involved in 2018-19.

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