Bhagalpur banks launch cyber fraud awareness drive for senior citizens

Bhagalpur: As part of the Reserve Bank of India’s nationwide campaign on cyber fraud awareness, banks in Bhagalpur have launched a series of outreach programmes targeting senior citizens, women, and students. Some banks are running specialised initiative focused on educating senior citizens—among the most vulnerable groups—about common cyberfrauds, safety practices, and the importance of prompt reporting.“The cyberfraud and safety awareness programme (CFSAP) for senior citizens is being conducted to highlighting the various cyber frauds, importance of cyber laws to combat cybercrimes besides preparing them to prevent it,” said a senior official of a bank on Friday, while urging the senior citizens not to get scared by the cyber criminals.He said the cyber criminals play with the fear psychosis of the victims and hence the senior citizens should remain alert and should not exhibit any kind fear and rather take immediate steps to inform the banking institutions and the police.Sanjay Kumar Lath, general secretary of Indian Bank Officers Association (IBOA), Bihar and Jharkhand, said that cyber fraud safety awareness programme is being held on identifying and preventing common cybercrimes including frauds and threats such as phishing, online banking frauds, identity theft etc.Senior citizens are particularly vulnerable due factors such as limited technical literacy, financial stability and growing social media usage, Lath added, saying therefore there is urgent need to safeguard the seniors.The CFSAP focused on creating financial literacy and behaviour among senior citizens, safe usage of digital banking tools etc, besides advisory on protecting personal financial information such as OTPs, passwords, UPI PINs etc and also about the grievance redressal mechanism for them.DSP Cyber Cell Kanishk Srivastava said that all the banking and financial institutions should organise sustained cyberfraud awareness and safety programmes in order to disseminate information about the cybercrime that has become prevalent now-a-days. “In the current financial year, over Rs 2 crore have been cheated from 11 senior citizen in Bhagalpur,” he said.