Summary of this article
Central Bank of India has restored RTGS services across all channels.
No customer accounts were affected by the technical issue.
Mumbai Police are investigating the unauthorised transfers worth Rs 13.97 crore.
Central Bank of India has restored its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) services across all channels after a technical issue involving its server interface. The bank has maintained that no customer accounts were affected and its core banking system is secure. The development comes after the lender reported suspected unauthorised transfers worth Rs 13.97 crore from its settlement account with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Bank Confirms RTGS Services Resumption
The Central Bank of India has attributed the technical issue to its server interface. In its press release, the bank clarified that “there was a technical issue observed in the interface environment of localised RTGS server maintained at Bank’s end”.
The lender has also maintained that “no customer account is impacted” and that its core banking system is safe. The bank did not provide further details about the technical issue or explain how it was linked to the reported transfers. However, the bank has confirmed that its services have resumed.
Rs 13.97 Crore Transferred Through 187 Transactions
According to the bank's complaint, six unauthorised transfers took place on October 15, followed by 88 on October 16, and 93 on October 17, 2026. The transactions involved a total of Rs 13.97 crore, which was transferred to 36 bank accounts.
The bank's internal team could not find any record of these 187 transactions through its branches, internet banking, mobile banking or other banking channels. The transfers were also missing from its core banking system, RTGS settlement account records and Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) server.
SFMS is used by banks to exchange payment messages for RTGS and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions. Normally, a bank records a payment instruction in its core banking system before sending the payment message through its SFMS server for settlement.
The complaint alleged that unidentified persons gained unauthorised access to a central financial messaging server operated by Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (IFTAS), a subsidiary of the RBI.
Investigators found partial records of 10 accounts in the SFMS database logs. However, the transaction identification numbers linked to these records were missing from the bank's records. The complaint also noted that the accounts listed as the sources of the transfers did not belong to Central Bank of India.
The bank has also alerted the RBI, IFTAS, the Daksh portal, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
