CEO resigns after bank transferred Rs 9,000 crore to Chennai cab driver by mistake

The cab driver had managed to send Rs 21,000 to a friend before the rest of the money was deducted by the bank. (Representational image)

The managing director and CEO of the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB), S Krishnan, quit days after it was reported that the bank mistakenly transferred Rs 9,000 crore to the bank account of a cab driver in Chennai. In his resignation letter, Krishnan said he decided to resign due to "personal reasons".

“Though I still have about 2/3rd of a term to go, for personal reasons, I have decided to resign as managing director and CEO of the bank,” the resignation letter read.

TMB has stated that it has updated the RBI about the resignation.

Krishnan's resignation comes a week after it was reported that the bank mistakenly credited Rs 9,000 crore to a cab driver in Chennai. The incident, however, had happened on September 9. The cab driver, Rajkumar, initially thought it was a scam when he received an SMS notification that Rs 9,000 crore was credited to his account by Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank. He originally had Rs 105 in his account, Indian Express reported.

He then attempted to transfer Rs 21,000 to a friend, and to his surprise, the transaction was successful.

“On September 9, around 3.08 pm, I received a message saying Rs 9,000 crore has been credited into my account. It was shocking," Rajkumar told Indian Express. "When we initially checked the message and counted the number of zeroes behind nine, we thought it was Rs 90 crore but later when we entered the number online, we found it was Rs 9,000 crore.”

“I called my friend and he told me that this is not possible and it must be a technical error. He suggested I transfer some amount to check if the amount was really credited into my account. I transferred Rs 21,000 in three installments and it got debited,” he added.

In half an hour, however, the bank deducted the remaining amount from his account.

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