Frauds in India 2022

 Corporate fraud has been a growing concern in India in recent years, with nearly 20 cases reported in each of the fiscal years 2022 and 2023 alone. The fraudulent activities include embezzlement and misappropriation of funds, insider trading and accounting fraud, breach of trust, false accounting, intellectual property theft, and more. The Indian government has enacted laws and regulations to combat corporate fraud, along with putting into effect various policies and procedures to ensure the safeguard of funds held by banks.

In the fiscal year 2022, India lost at least Rs 100 crore every day to bank fraud or scams, according to the latest data released by RBI. Recently, Kotak Mahindra Bank had the highest number of bank frauds, at 642, in the first nine months of FY22, followed by ICICI Bank at 518 and IndusInd Bank at 377. Bank frauds in the last two years were mainly by data theft, fraudulent documentation, and third-party induced fraud, said a survey by Deloitte, adding that bank frauds will increase in the next two years.The Reserve Bank of India has reported that financial security frauds have become more sophisticated and have been increasing in numbers. The amount of money involved in these frauds has also increased. The primary reason is a lack of awareness among the people about these frauds. Banks, too, have been slow on the uptake when it comes to upgrading their security systems and staying abreast with the tricks employed by fraudsters

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. Cybercrime, vendor favoritism, and bribery and corruption were identified as the key fraud risks to watch out for in the future.

Actions taken by Government:

The Indian government has taken several steps to combat corporate fraud in the country. The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) is a multi-disciplinary organization under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, consisting of experts in the field of accountancy, forensic auditing, law, information technology, investigation, company law, capital market, and taxation for detecting and prosecuting or recommending for prosecution white-collar crimes and frauds. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has also taken various actions to identify, mitigate, or prevent fraud by getting involved during the different stages of the fraud. The government has enacted laws and regulations to combat corporate fraud, along with putting into effect various policies and procedures to ensure the safeguard of funds held by banks. However, despite these efforts, the rampant and systemic corruption in Indian society is putting a serious damper on their progress. Deloitte India suggests that an enterprise-wide view of fraud is the future of fraud prevention, and organizations in India need to adopt advanced technologies that incorporate data visualization, statistical analysis, text mining, and voice searching concepts that can be applied across data sets from disparate sources to determine fraud in its infancy.