Study the IDFC First Bank's fraud case. This should convince you to keep your money across multiple accounts.

What happened with IDFC First?

- Haryana government departments asked IDFC First Bank's Chandigarh branch to close their accounts and transfer the funds elsewhere.

- Bank staff checked the balances but found big mismatches. The government expected ~Rs 590 crore across several accounts, but much less showed up in the bank's records.

- Why? Employees at the branch allegedly did unauthorized transactions on these specific government-linked accounts.

- What is abnormal about all this is: that the insiders were able to cover their tracks in branch records. Therefore, the balances looked normal.

And, it only got uncovered because of the closure requests. And, it could be speculated that this was a high value account that was dormant.

- The response of the bank seems commendable: that IDFC First Bank has already paid 583 Crores to Haryana Government (even when the investigation is on).

But, imagine if this happens to your account?

There is no way that such a swift resolution would happen on small accounts. You would be made to run across customer case, branches, RBI, courts and whatnot.

Sad part is this is not an IDFC First issue. This can happen with any bank in India.

Some simple things you should do:-

1. Check your bank statements weekly.

2. Set transaction limits on your account.

3. Don't let your accounts go dormant.

4. Spread your money across multiple accounts.

5. Don't share your OTPs etc (this is common sense).