487 cases of ATM frauds reported in 2011: Govt

[1]

Banks have reported 487 cases of ATM frauds in 2011, involving over Rs 7 crore — triple the amount reported four years ago, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

As many as 153 incidents of ATM frauds were noticed in the calendar year 2008, involving an amount of Rs 2.46 crore, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply. He said the Reserve Bank does not maintain a separate data on the nature of ATM frauds.

RBI has quoted a Federal Bank report dated May 30, 2012, to state, "ATM frauds containing 874 incidents were noticed across India involving an amount of Rs 83.35 lakh," the Minister said.

As per the report: "Few persons have defrauded the bank by taking part of withdrawal amount and allowing the balance to be taken back by the Automatic Teller Machine. However full transactions of withdrawal was not accounted for their accounts," Chidambaram said in his reply.

He added that in order to combat the menace, the RBI has given approval to National Payment Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to disable cash retraction feature in ATMs.

"NPCI has reported that cash retraction feature has been disabled at only 39,169 ATMs out of 99,995 ATMs as on June 30, 2012," he said. Last year, RBI had advised NPCI to disable cash retraction feature in all ATMs by August 31, 2012.