RBI working on creating public awareness about Ponzi schemes

Amid rising instances of investors getting duped by Ponzi schemes, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday said it is working on creating more public awareness about such fraudulent schemes.

Amid rising instances of investors getting duped by Ponzi schemes, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday said it is working on creating more public awareness about such fraudulent schemes.

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"Communication should be two way. We should talk to people and listen to them. We had this Saradha incident in West Bengal about two months ago. And there has been lot of thinking within RBI itself about what we should do to spread awareness on these kind of things," RBI governor D Subbarao said.

In the wake of Saradha chit funds fraud that duped many investors, government has been making efforts to crack down on entities running fraudulent schemes that raise money from people.

"We believe in telling people and listening to them is very important in improving our knowledge on how to handle this problem," Subbarao said.

He was delivering a lecture on 'Changing Role of RBI' at the concluding event of golden jubilee celebrations of Reserve Bank Staff College in New Delhi.

The RBI governor said the central bank and the market regulator (Sebi) recently had an interaction with the people on the money collecting schemes.

"On June 29, last Saturday, our deputy governor Anand Sinha and Sebi chairman UK Sinha have done a townhall meeting in Chandigarh on this issue. They had gathered about 300 people to hear their questions on this ponzi schemes, chit funds, NBFCs, on these collective investment schemes...some are illegal, some are legal...just to understand people's concerns about these and tell them where it stands. That shows Reserve Bank's endeavour to communicate more actively (with the people)", he said.