What Went Wrong At bob World? (Image: x.com/bankofbaroda)

The latest on the lines of bank scam comes from the Bank of Baroda, an Indian bank which is the second largest among the public sector banks and the third largest among the state owned lenders in terms of active mobile banking customers. The scam, operated by the bank”s own employees using the bank”s own mobile app through bogus mobile numbers was reported in July 2023, by AlJazeera, an international news network and the Reporter”s Collective, which is group of like minded journalists” focusing on reporting that keeps the powerful accountable. The investigation says that the bank made it easy and simple for its agents to steal money, turning the bank into a fraud prone area. As the report was out, the Central Bank, RBI, stepped in, with an internal audit. More on this:

1. The public sector bank, Bank of Baroda’s associates have committed fraud by withdrawing money off their customers through the bank’s mobile app.
2. A huge number of accounts – 4.2 lakh accounts, from 7,000 branches have been registered in the Bank’s app called ‘bob World’ wrongfully, and have been used in the fraud.
3. The latest bank fraud has come to light after an expose undertaken by The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) and Al Jazeera.
4. The report on this said that the practice of withdrawing/stealing money was widespread in the bank. “India’s Bank of Baroda made it simple and easy for its agents to steal money from the accounts of its customers. And some of them did steal 2.2 million rupees ($27,000) from 362 customers, internal audit reports and records of the bank have revealed,” the report said.
5. The bank employees had taken advantage of the laxity in the bank’s security measures concerned to IT infrastructure. They employees, linked their and their family members’ mobile numbers to the customers’ account numbers, later using this to steal money through unauthorised mobile linking.
6. Apparently, this linking of mobile numbers to the customers’ account numbers were initiated as a part of boosting registration on the bob World app, due to the pressure upon the employees from the bank.
7. An internal audit was ordered by the Reserve Bank of India. The RBI’s audit of Bank of Baroda uncovered fraud to the tune of Rs 22 lakh from 362 customers. Among them, six individuals’ customers have lost more than Rs 1.10 lakh.
8. The audit which was conducted nationwide, said that the bank had around 422,000 accounts which were registered in the ‘bob World’ app by the bank employees using incorrect credentials.
9. Following this, the RBI has barred the public sector bank, Bank of Baroda from onboarding new customers through its mobile app.
10. The Bank of Baroda, in a notification has said that it has taken corrective measures to plug the loopholes apart from the corrective measures directed by the RBI.

(With inputs from the AlJazeera, The Reporter”s Collective, timesofindia, newindianexpress, outlookindia and livemint)