16,468 instances of financial cyber crime in 2015-16, Reported By RBI

In the recent past years, the years Financial cybercrime in India has been constantly growing. RBI reported 16468 instance of financial cyber crime related to ATM, debit card, credit card and net banking frauds, the year 2015-16. As compared to  13,083 in the year 2014-15 and 9,500 in the year 2013-14, as reported by RBI. The statistical data was provided to a question raised in the Lok Sabha by MPs Dushyant Singh and Manoj Tiwari.

As the digitital payment gateways are being embraced by individuals with more and more person opting for digial payment gateways and plastic currency, frauds and financial cyber crimes are also rising. In India, over 3.2 million debit card details were likely stolen by hackers hackers from ATMs and POS machines in October 2016. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said that the complaints of fraudulent withdrawal are limited to cards of 19 banks and 641 customers. The total amount involved is Rs. 1.3 crore.  More recently, Bank of Maharashtra reported a loss of Rs 25 crore in March as frauds exploited a bug in their UPI application and core banking software.

RBI has set up a ReBIT. This takes care of its IT requirements, including the cyber security needs of the bank and its regulated entities. ReBIT responsibility is primarily to focus on IT and cyber security including research for the financial sector and assist in IT systems audit and assessment of RBI regulated entities. Furthermore it also provides assistance to implement and manage internal or system wide IT projects. ReBit with have offshoots namely, cyber security, research and innovation, systems audit and project management.