Fraud-hit Punjab National Bank (PNB) has taken a series of measures to check misuse of SWIFT message platform, allegedly used by Nirav Modi and his associates to defraud the bank of Rs 1,2967.86 crore, the finance ministry said on Tuesday. He further said that PNB has appraised that it has taken several steps to ensure that such unauthorised activities are not repeated. Listing out the steps taken by PNB, Shukla said the bank has established an additional tier (off-site) as a third level of re-authorisation of SWIFT messages, wherein payment messages are re-authorised by a separate team of SWIFT centre, Mumbai only. “Switching off of SWIFT server (LTE) by 10pm, and restricting SWIFT operations at branches to 6.30pm and centralised back office for trade finance by 7pm,” is another step taken by PNB. Concurrent auditors at branches to ensure physical reconciliation of all SWIFT messages with CBS on daily basis and monitoring of SWIFT user ID creation/resetting, are some of the other measures taken by the bank.

Source: Hindustan Times March 13, 2018 14:15 UTC