The Ministry of Finance, in 2017, received 20 complaints of bank frauds, amounting to Rs 7.65 lakhs related to linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts. Note that the list from the Ministry of Finance seems incomplete since it only includes Indian Overseas Bank, State Bank of India, UCO Bank and Syndicate bank.

Cases such as this, related to Rs 1.3 Lakh from ICICI Bank, haven’t been included. Here’s another case in the Hindu from September, though that doesn’t mention which bank. This Scroll story from October suggests there were several cases in Noida, which are being investigated by the police. The ministry list mentions 2 cases for October and 1 for September, so perhaps the data needs more work.

According to data provided by the ministry:
– Rs 5,89,518 in fraud was reported for Indian Overseas Bank between April and December 2017, across 15 instances.
– Rs 80,000 for State Bank of India, across 2 complaints
– Rs 95,250 for UCO Bank, in one case.
– No money was disclosed as having been siphoned off from Syndicate Bank, but 2 complaints were reported

The ministry also reported a total of around 126,000 overall grievances, of which around 120,000 were disposed of, between January 1st, 2017 and December 28th.

All is not lost

The ministry said that

“for customer protection, zero liability of a customer is assured vide Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI)circular dated 6th July, 2017 in all cases of a third party breach where the deficiency lies neither with the bank nor with the customer but lies elsewhere in the system and the customer notifies the bank within three working days of receiving the communication from the bank regarding the unauthorized transaction. On being notified by the customer, the bank shall credit (shadow reversal) the amount involved in the unauthorized electronic transaction to the customer’s account within ten working days from the date of such notification by the customer.”

Source: Rajya Sabha filing (Doc file)