UCO Bank files FIR as Rs. 820 Cr wrongly credited to customer accounts

UCO Bank, Kolkata has filed a First Information Report (FIR) with the state police and requested a CBI investigation after the bank’s system wrongfully credited Rs. 820 crore to client accounts. It has so far managed to “retain or recover” Rs. 649 crore, or approximately 79% of the total.

The bank has taken the necessary steps to recover the remaining Rs. 171 crore.

The incident has also been referred to various law enforcement agencies for investigation,” the bank stated in a stock exchange filing.

The bank announced the temporary suspension of its Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) on Wednesday, which has yet to be operationalized. “Our IMPS would be suspended for the moment.” NEFT and other transactions, on the other hand, would be possible. “When the fault is detected, the IMPS facility will be available,” UCO Bank MD and CEO Ashani Kumar stated, without ruling out the possibility of human error or a cyber attack.

Kumar elaborated on the issue, saying that when a sender initiated a transaction, they received the erroneous message “transaction declined” owing to a glitch. While the money was withdrawn from the sender’s account, it was deposited twice — once in the recipient’s account and once in the sender’s.

The bank has frozen the accounts that were incorrectly credited with funds. Kumar claims that UCO has also notified all remitting banks. “The good point is that despite festivals, we could recover most of the money,” he added. On Thursday, UCO Bank’s stock fell 1% to Rs. 39.4.

In addition, IMPS is a real-time interbank electronic funds transfer system that occurs without intervention. The account-to-account fund transfer platform serves as the foundation of UPI. Under IMPS, there is a daily transaction restriction of Rs. 5 lakh, and transfers are subject to costs ranging from Rs. 5 to Rs. 15.

In two filings on Wednesday, UCO Bank informed exchanges of the problem. There is no word on when IMPS will be resumed.