21 National banks lose over Rs 25,000 crores in Q4: Report

New Delhi : Blame it on bank frauds, 21 national banks have posted a loss of over Rs 25,000 crores in the financial year 2017-18, a Right to Information reply has stated.

The highest loss has been incurred by the Punjab National Bank of Rs 6461.13 crore due to different fraud cases, Chandrasekhar Gaud, who had filed the RTI with the Reserve Bank of India, told PTI on Sunday.

However, there has been no mention of the kind of banking fraud in the reply.

One of the biggest banking frauds, allegedly involving diamond merchants Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and PNB officials, is being currently investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The RTI clearly mentions that only those cases of frauds have been included in the list which amounts to over Rs 1 Lakhs.

In another news report, Government-owned banks, forced to accelerate the clean-up of their books in the final quarter of FY18, have reported losses in excess of Rs 50,000 crore, shows earnings data compiled by BloombergQuint.

"For the 17 listed PSU banks which have reported earnings till Friday, the total net loss stood at Rs 53,000 crore compared with a net loss of Rs 4,302 crore in the same quarter last year," the report added.