Nearly 180 financial crimes worth Rs36 billion have been registered in Nepal in the last eight years. National Banking Institute (NBI) published the statistic on Monday and highlighted the need for developing a robust mechanism to counter such challenges in the wake of digitalization.

In a day-long conference held in the Capital in association with India’s Fintelekt, the NBI said that financial crime has become a big challenge not only for Nepal but for the entire global banking industry. Sanjib Subba, CEO of NBI, said there was a need to develop robust mechanisms to counter the growth of financial crimes.

“With the advent of digitization, there could be modes of financial crimes which the industry has not discovered or experienced. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be prepared for all types of financial crimes.”

Priyanka Kadam, director of regulation at First Data, shared information about the types of financial crimes in remittance business and the best ways to counter them.

Similarly another expert from India, Prasun Singh, chief of Internal Vigilance, HDFC Bank, highlighted advanced techniques for fraud detection in the banking industry.

Narayan P Paudel, executive director, Regulation Department of Nepal Rastra Bank, shared two aspects of banking fraud that can be observed—weak level of corporate governance and threats caused through technological advancements.

Sashin Joshi, former banker, emphasized on four major aspects for occurrence of fraud namely breakdown of the system, coalition, negligence and lack of due diligence and the most important, lack of knowledge.

DIG Pushkar Karki shared that the chance of fraud has been heightened due to the sheer number of transactions. He suggested that both the bank and CIB should work towards creating a secure financial environment.

The programme was attended by over 100 senior level bank employees from across the nation.