LUCKNOW: Linking bank account services with mobile phones proved costly for nine bank customers in Uttar Pradesh. Special Task Force of UP arrested two persons for financial fraud . The arrested accused include a Bandhan Bank employee Vijay Pandey (26) who was earlier associated with Axis Bank as customer support officer. The two were arrested from Dayal Paradise crossing in Gomtinagar on Friday morning.Along with an accomplice Dharmendra Pathak (33), the private bank employee extracted confidential information of nine bank customers to steal Rs 45 lakh through 240 fraudulent transactions over 40 days. Sleuths working on the case found out that Vijay was being guided by a Mumbai-based techie who had experience of working in the banking industry and they believe the fraud could be of a bigger scale.Aware of loopholes in the unified payments interface of various banks and Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), Vijay leaked the 16-digit debit card number, its expiry date and registered mobile number along with address of the Axis bank customers to Pathak on WhatsApp while he was in office.Pathak drafted a police complaint in the name of bank customers claiming he had lost a SIM card. After getting the complaint stamped at the police station, Pathak approached the telecom service provider with request for a new SIM.The telecom company would cross-check the address in the complaint and issue a new SIM assuming that police had acknowledged the complaint. Dubbed invalid, the old SIM stopped functioning and Vijay would download BHIM or UPI app with the help of the newly generated SIM card.The app prompts users to provide debit card number and asks user to ensure the BHIM app is in the device that has the registered mobile number and thus the OTP generated to authenticate the user was received. When four customers of Axis bank holding accounts at Bansi branch of the bank in Siddharthnagar district were duped early this year, manager of the branch Himadri Acharya lodged an FIR.Similar frauds were reported from Axis Bank branches in Kanpur, Mahoba and Bahraich. In all the cases, the bank refunded the money to customers within a few weeks. Additional superintendent of STF Triveni Singh took over the investigations recently. “The fraud exposes the vulnerability of the payments industry in the country and this is the first case reported in which BHIM and UPIs account holders have been duped. Without cooperation of National Payments Corporation of India, the case could not have been worked out,” said Singh. NPCI created BHIM and launched it this year.During investigations, it was found that Vijay’s computer had been used for viewing account details of all the nine customers who were targeted. He was posted in Ghazipur district at an Axis Bank branch and had quit his job after his name cropped up after which he joined Bandhan Bank in Azamgarh district.The investigating officer said he would write to the Union ministry to introduce a fresh security feature for UPI/BHIM users. “Linking the app to registered mobile number is a good idea for easy payment. But it is being misused by bank employees. It will be advisable to introduce a feature or step in the process which cannot be breached by anyone. We will deliberate with the NPCI on it,” said Singh.