A 27-year-old HDFC bank employee, Payal Kothari, has been accused of stealing Rs 3 crore from a customer’s fixed deposits (FDs) and transferring the funds into fake accounts, prompting the Bombay High Court to issue notices to both HDFC Bank and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 3.

The incident, which has raised serious concerns about public faith in the banking system, was highlighted during a hearing before Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan, as reported in an Economic Times report.

The judges questioned the impact of such fraud on public faith in banking, asking, “Ultimately, people trust a particular bank... a relationship manager takes a person for a ride. What faith will people have in the banking system now?”

The complaint was filed by 53-year-old Meenakshi Kapuria, who claimed that Kothari, her relationship manager, had broken her fixed deposits worth Rs 3 crore and transferred the money into fraudulent accounts.

From there, the funds were moved to Kothari's personal accounts. Kapuria also noted that she never received any SMS or email alerts regarding these transactions.

Kapuria’s lawyer, Rizwan Siddiquee, explained that Kothari had gained her trust by taking signed blank cheques from her under the pretext of investing the money in high-return schemes, such as mutual funds and gold bonds, instead of keeping it in fixed deposits.

During the hearing, prosecutor Kranti Hiwrale informed the court that Kothari’s bank accounts had been frozen, but they contained only Rs 30,000, added Economic Times.