New Delhi, June 3 -- The Reserve Bank of India's annual report for 2024-25 highlights a chronic and worsening vulnerability in the country's financial system: bank frauds. These are not just compliance or accounting problems, they threaten the very foundations of trust that banking depends on and pose a broader risk to systemic stability.

The numbers are deeply unsettling. Bank frauds aren't just rising-they've exploded. The total amount lost to fraud tripled in just a year, from Rs.12,230 crore in 2023-24 to Rs.36,014 crore in 2024-25. And this surge came despite a decline in the number of reported cases-from 36,060 to 23,953. In other words, frauds are getting larger, not just more frequent-an alarming shift in the risk landscape.

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