The RBI on Tuesday asked the bank to suspend onboarding new customers through its online banking app, ‘bobWorld’. The central bank didn’t give much details. But the Reporters’ Collective investigation reveals what the RBI hasn’t: The Bank of Baroda’s underhand tactic at boosting its online registration has jeopardised the safety of customers’ money.

Some of the bank’s agents have stolen Rs 2.2 million ($27,000) from 362 customers. The bank’s agents, called Business Correspondents, have withdrawn tens of thousands of rupees from customers’ accounts by using the mobile banking app.

The RBI’s entry follows a Reporters’ Collective investigation that had exposed how Bank of Baroda used fraud to sign up customers onto ‘bobWorld’ and boost the number of registrations. 

The bank’s employees linked mobile numbers of strangers to accounts of poor, illiterate and unsuspecting customers who hadn't even thought about joining the online banking bandwagon. Voilà! The user count soared. Why did it happen? Because somebody at the top was demanding ‘show me the numbers’. The Collective had warned in its story that the underhand tactic would put customers’ money at risk 

RBI had demanded a thorough audit of the accounts that were registered on the bob World app, and asked that the papers of enrollment be verified. For this audit, the bank identified about 4,22,000 accounts that they suspected could be illegally registered on the app.

Little birdies sitting in the bank’s different branches squealed to us that the bank tried hard to beat the audit. And in its hurry, the bank has littered the scene with pieces of evidence that further validate our exposé.

Ahead of the audit, bank staff scurried to gather documents that show that these suspect-accounts had indeed requested for bob World app service. When customers hadn’t requested the app service, where on earth would they find such papers? In a bid to beat the audit and avoid blame, the bank resorted to subterfuge, manipulating documents, altering dates, and fabricating applications to create an illusion of genuine customer consent.

Let’s read back what the bank had told us with a straight face when we approached them for comments during the investigation: “The bank has a robust system with the necessary controls in place… to register or update a mobile number in a bank account, customers need to visit the bank branch in person and follow a two-factor authentication process, post which the mobile number is activated after 24 hours.”

The details only get scarier. Read the story by Hemant Gairola that follows up his investigation into the widespread illegality in India’s second-largest state-owned bank.

Click here to read the report published by Al Jazeera in English here. To read the Hindi version published on The Reporters' Collective website click here.