Central Bank of India Reports ₹13.97 Cr Unauthorised Transfers
Mumbai Police register an FIR after 187 suspicious transactions allegedly routed funds from the bank’s RBI settlement account to 36 accounts.
- Bank reports unauthorised transfers worth ₹13.97 crore
- 187 transactions allegedly routed funds to 36 accounts
- FIR registered against unidentified persons in Mumbai
- Investigators probe suspected misuse of financial messaging infrastructure
GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 24th Oct: Central Bank of India has reported unauthorised transactions worth ₹13.97 crore from its settlement account with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), prompting Mumbai Police to register a first information report (FIR) against unidentified persons.
According to the bank’s complaint, 187 unauthorised transfers were carried out between October 15 and October 17, with the funds allegedly routed to 36 bank accounts.
The bank suspects that unidentified individuals gained unauthorised access to the central Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) server operated by Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (Iftas), an RBI subsidiary, and diverted money from its settlement account.
The FIR was registered at Mumbai’s Nodal Cyber Police Station following a complaint filed by the bank’s general manager (treasury).
187 Transfers Missing From Banking Records
The complaint details six transfers on October 15, followed by 88 on October 16 and another 93 on October 17.
The bank’s internal team reportedly could not trace any of the transactions through its branches, internet banking, mobile banking or other banking channels. The transfers were also absent from its core banking system, RTGS settlement account and SFMS server records.
Although partial traces of 10 accounts were reportedly found in SFMS database logs, the corresponding transaction IDs were missing from the bank’s records.
The complaint further stated that the accounts identified as the payers in the transactions did not belong to Central Bank of India.
Investigators are examining how the transfers were executed. Information available to the police remains limited, making it difficult to establish the precise method used to divert the funds.
How the SFMS Payment System Works
The Structured Financial Messaging System facilitates the exchange of financial messages between banks for payments processed through the RBI’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) systems.
Under the normal RTGS process, a bank records a customer’s payment instruction in its core banking system, debits the customer’s account and credits the amount to its RTGS settlement account. A payment message is then sent through the bank’s SFMS server to Iftas’s central SFMS server, enabling the corresponding debit from the bank’s settlement account with the RBI.
The complaint alleges that the perpetrators exploited this messaging infrastructure to divert funds without the transactions appearing in the bank’s own systems.
The investigation will seek to determine how the alleged transfers bypassed the bank’s records and whether unauthorised access to the messaging infrastructure was involved.
Bank Alerts Authorities as Probe Continues
Central Bank of India said it had promptly alerted the RBI, Iftas, the Daksh portal, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
Police have registered a case involving cheating and personation against unknown persons. Investigators are working to establish the sequence of events, trace the transferred funds and identify those responsible.
The case has raised questions about the security of financial messaging infrastructure and the safeguards needed to detect suspicious transactions between banking systems. The allegations remain under investigation.
