The Reserve Bank of India has cautioned citizens against a fake website which is fraudulently taking personal and confidential banking details of bank customers posing as the central bank.

“It has come to the notice of the Reserve Bank of India that a fake website of the Reserve Bank of India has been created with the URL www.indiareserveban.org by some unknown person(s). The layout of the fake website is similar to the original RBI website,” RBI said in a statement on its website.

The official website of the RBI — India’s central bank — is https://www.rbi.org.in and it holds no other website.

The home page of the fake website also contains a provision for “Bank verification with online account holders” which appears to have been created with a fraudulent intent of obtaining personal and confidential banking details of customers of banks, it added.

"The Reserve Bank of India clarifies that as India’s central bank, it does not hold any accounts for individuals and never asks for personal information such as bank account details, passwords, etc...

"The Reserve Bank cautions members of public that responding online on such websites could result in compromising crucial personal information that may be misused to cause financial and other loss to them," the banking regulator clarified.

Over past years, RBI has been consistently alerting customers about the fake websites, emails asking to transfer funds or for bank account details in the name of a lottery, fictitious job offers in the name of RBI jobs, etc fraudulently luring and cheating customers and that one should not fall prey to it.

Further, members of public are also cautioned about existence of websites such as www.rbi.org www.rbi.in etc. These URLs may appear similar to the website of RBI. However, these websites have no affiliation with the Reserve Bank of India. Members of public are advised to be cautious while accessing or when providing any information on such sites.