The number of credit card frauds rose to 1,590 in the quarter ended December 2012 involving an amount of Rs 948.64 lakh, Parliament was informed today.

“As per information furnished by Reserve Bank of India there were 1,590 cases of credit card frauds involving an amount of Rs 948.64 lakh during the quarter ended December 2012 as compared to 1,327 cases involving an amount of Rs 492.98 lakh in the quarter ended September 2012,” Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

He said RBI has taken various measures to prevent such frauds and has issued various guidelines from time to time.

RBI has advised banks to set up internal control systems to combat frauds, take pro-active measures, ensure credit card operations are safe, sound and profitable, preventive measures to combat frauds relating to skimming or duplication of cards.

Also, RBI has asked banks to move to secure Card Not Present (CNP) transactions, making it mandatory for banks to put in place additional authentication/validation.

“RBI has issued guidelines which are fundamentally expected to enhance safety, security, efficiency in banking processes relating to benefits for banks and their customers.

The implementation progress is required to be reviewed and report submitted to the Board on quarterly basis,” Meena said.

Rise in Gross NPAs of PSBs

In reply to a separate question, the Minister said the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the public sector banks (PSBs) has increased from Rs 71,080 crore as on March 2011 to Rs 1,12,489 crore as on March 2012.

As on December 2012, the gross NPAs of the public banks rose to Rs 1,55,839 crore.

As of December 2012, gross NPA (GNPA) ratio stood at 3.69 per cent, GNPA ratio in agriculture at 5.20 per cent, GNPA ratio in retail loans at 2.73 per cent and GNPA ratio in corporate lending stood at 3.41 per cent.

Government has asked banks to increase the pace of recovery and manage NPAs, put in place early warning system, replace post dated cheque system with Electronic Clearance System, review NPA accounts of Rs 1 crore and above by Board of Directors and top 300 NPA accounts by Management Committee.

“Parliament has recently enacted The Enforcement of Security Interest and Recovery of Debt Laws (Amendment) Act, 2012 for removing of certain bottlenecks in the recovery of bad debts. The Amendment Act has come to force from January, 15, 2013,” he said.

He further said steps taken by government and RBI have resulted in improvement of recovery of NPAs.

The recovery of NPA by PSBs has increased from Rs 9,726 crore (March 2010) to Rs 13,940 crore (March 2011), Rs 17,043 crore (March 2012) and Rs 10,815 crore (September 2012).

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