Banks May Send SMS Alert To Customers To Prevent Cheque Fraud

Business

oi-Sunil

By Sunil Fernandes

Published: Friday, November 7, 2014, 11:05 [IST]

Banks may soon send SMS alerts to all Customers who have drawn cheques and to customers whose account is being credited to prevent cheque frauds. While this is being done selectively at the moment, it may soon be implemented in total.

This is one of the suggested means to prevent Cheque Fraud and has been suggested by the Reserve Bank of India. In a letter to the Chairmen of all banks the RBI has said that the rise in the number of cheque related fraud cases is a matter of serious concern.

"Banks are, therefore, advised to review and strengthen the controls in the cheque presenting/passing and account monitoring processes and to ensure that all procedural guidelines including preventive measures are followed meticulously by the dealing staff/officials. Given below are some of the preventive measures banks may follow in this regard," the RBI has said in its release.

It has listed a number of measures that banks could take to prevent cheque fraud. Among the major steps highlighted include the following:

1) Ensuring the use of 100 per cent CTS - 2010 compliant cheques.

2) Ensuring that the beneficiary is KYC compliant so that the bank has recourse to him/her as long as he/she remains a customer of the bank.

3) Close monitoring of credits and debits in newly opened transaction accounts based on risk categorization.

4) In addition to the above, banks may consider the following preventive measures for dealing with suspicious or large value cheques (in relation to an account's normal level of operations):

a) Alerting the customer by a phone call and getting the confirmation from the payer/drawer.

b) Contacting base branch in case of non-home cheques.

The above may be resorted to selectively if not found feasible to be implemented systematically.

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