FD fraud: Equitas Bank lodges FIR against ex-branch manager

Hyderabad: Equitas Small Finance Bank stated that it lodged an FIR against their former branch manager, Hari Prasad, in connection with a fixed deposits issue. The bank clarified that it has no connection with the FD funds of Tirumala Co-operative Bank transferred to unrelated accounts.

Reacting to the news story titled ‘Co-op bank accuses finance co. staff of 2.4 crore FD fraud', Ramanathan K, the legal head of Equitas Small Finance Bank, said, "Tirumala Co-operative Urban Bank Limited has only four fixed deposit accounts with our AS Rao Nagar branch under the non-callable category."

He added, "Admittedly, the amount towards the alleged booking of fixed deposit accounts was transferred to the account opened as ‘EQIT SFIN'. The Tirumala co-operative bank, being an existing customer of ours, must have been aware of the account details to which the amounts were to be transferred for making investments in our bank."

He continued, "Instead, they chose to transfer the funds to an account ‘EQIT SFIN' unrelated to our bank. The FIR states that transactions were carried out despite the flagging of a mismatch in the name of the account by IDBI Bank to Bank of Baroda. Therefore, it is clear that they transferred amounts to an account unrelated to us."

He further added, "Given the circumstances, the said bank has no ‘locus standi' to accuse us of orchestrating the fraud along with the branch manager. We reiterate that we have no connection with the funds transferred into an account named ‘EQIT SFIN' by the said bank. In this regard, we wish to refer to the FIR bearing no. 77 of 2025 dated Jan 23, 2025, registered by Kushiguda Police Station based on our complaint against the ex-branch manager, Hari Prasad."