Politicians, party cadre and election officials are tasked with the conduct of elections. And who else do you think remains busy once the poll bugle is sounded? Bank officials!
While they might not exactly be in the thick of things, a select set of bank officials keep a hawk’s eye on money transactions away from public glare during this time. Analysing specified transactions is something surveillance teams of banks do at other times too, but during elections, the proportions differ.
This is because at the heart is a requirement mandated by Ministry of Finance’s Financial Intelligence Unit of India (FIUI), under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, for banks and financial institutions to report transactions falling under certain categories.
Banks generate and file two types of reports — Cash Transaction Report (CTR) and Suspicious Transaction Report (STR). CTR pertains to high value withdrawals and deposits, and is more routine whereas STRs are transactions not commensurate with customer profile indicated at the time of opening of account, says State Bank of India (SBI)’s Hyderabad Circle Chief General Manager J. Swaminathan.
SBI has a state-of-the-art transaction monitoring centre in Jaipur, which, he said, is on par with facilities of foreign banks. It covers 23,000 branches and handles a million transactions daily.
The system, however, cannot report a transaction as a STR on its own. It shows an alert, which is sent to the respective Local Head Office concerned — the bank has 17 such offices across India, each equipped with a surveillance team headed by an Assistant General Manager (AGM). The team scans through the transactions over a period of time and makes observations.
Mr. Swaminathan said while it is difficult to give numbers as they keep varying, many alerts “get dismissed” as there may be property transactions to support or a loan that has been availed. Nevertheless, during elections, bankers are “wary of things” so the checks are more frequent — just in case when the FIUI is sounded.