Aadhaar-Linked Accounts Of 5 Customers Breached, Over Rs 5 Lakh Swindled Off: Arun Jaitley In Lok Sabha

The Finance Ministry has received notices regarding two public sector banks where money has been fraudulently swindled off from the Aadhaar-related bank accounts. There were four such incidents in Andhra bank where almost Rs 4,20,098 was swindled away. Rs 1,21,500 was taken out of an account in the Syndicate Bank.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the Ministry has received about 20 complaints and totalling a loss of over Rs. 7 Lakhs since 2015. All the complaints were related to Aadhaar and bank account linking.

The Indian Overseas Bank reported the maximum of 15 cases, where Rs 5.89 lakh was withdrawn. Two cases were reported from the State Bank of India, where Rs 80,500 was syphoned off, and Rs 95,250 was withdrawn from an account at UCO Bank, according to a The Financial Express report.

More than Rs 13 lakh was syphoned off by withdrawing money from accounts linked with Aadhaar.

An unidentified official at the Unique Identification Authority of India told The Financial Express there had been no breach of data at the agency’s end. “These cases of fraudulent withdrawal are more in the nature of online banking frauds wherein gullible customers happen to share their confidential details with fraudsters over the phone or internet,” the official added.

Earlier, FM Jaitley has said, “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 unauthorised transaction.”