As the country's economy goes through a downturn, the cases related to banking offenses have surged in the current fiscal year. From large businesses to small businesses, as well as individuals have been struggling to pay their dues and fulfill financial obligations on time, which according to Nepal Police has resulted in a rise in banking offense cases. According to the data obtained from Nepal Police, 6,483 cases of banking offenses with the amount equal to Rs 8.57bn have been registered till mid-March 2023. The data show there have already been more banking fraud cases registered in the first eight months of FY 2022/23 than in FY 2021/22. According to Nepal Police, a total of 5,416 cases of banking fraud were registered in the last fiscal year.

The majority of banking offense cases are related to cheque bounces. In this fiscal also, 99 percent of banking offense cases are of bad cheques.

Of the total 6,483 banking fraud cases, 6,422 were related to bad cheques. As per the Banking Offense and Punishment Act, 2008, the non-payment of a written cheque three times due to the account holder’s failure to maintain the amount mentioned on the cheque is counted as a banking offense. The second most registered banking offense cases are of the cooperative institutions where the depositors have been denied to withdraw their deposited money. Experts attribute the rise in banking fraud to the current economic crisis. There has been an interruption in the flow of money in the market due to a prolonged liquidity crunch as well as the slowdown in aggregate demand. In addition, banks and financial institutions' higher interest rates have also hit small businesses hard. Companies and individuals issue cheques of a certain date to settle their business and personal transactions. However, due to the recent downturn in business, the ability of companies and individuals to pay their creditors has weakened. People often issue bad cheques to their creditors to avoid a difficult situation. Nepal Police Spokesperson Poshraj Pokharel said that the number of banking fraud cases has increased due to the recent economic crisis. According to police data, cases related to banking fraud have been increasing every year. There were only 755 banking offense cases registered by the Nepal Police in FY 2017/18 which continued to surge in the next two fiscal years. But there was some decline in the registration of fraud cases in FY 2020/21. However, in the last two years, banking offense cases have again started to increase. Along with the cases, the monetary amount of banking fraud has also surged. Banking offense cases

FY	Registered Cases	Amount
2017/18	755	Rs 2.93 billion
2018/19	3036	Rs 1.59 billion
2019/20	3315	Rs 2.93 billion
2020/21	2365	Rs 3.37 billion
2021/22	5416	Rs 14.21 billion
2022/23 (First 8 months only)	6483	Rs 8.57 billion