The State Economic Offences Wing (EOW) along with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon launch a website that will give investors details of non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), like whether they were licensed by the RBI and their ratings in terms of risks.
Tamil Nadu Police will be the first to introduce such a facility that will go a long way in prevention of cheating by scamsters, the Additional Director General of Police, Prateep V. Philip (EOW), told The Hindu here on Friday.
Disclosing that the software has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology, he said the database of NBFCs from RBI will be uploaded on the website.
The website will also send automated response through e-mails and SMS to the investors, Mr. Philip said.
People could also know the ratings of the companies in terms of risk involved in investments. Stating that the website would be launched by February, he said the EOW would ask the RBI to handle the website and expand its services across the country.
Mr. Philip said that EOW has been taking proactive steps in preventing economic offences in which the poor and the middle class were being robbed off their hard-earned savings.
“For the first time, we set up an intelligence wing in our unit in August. Officers are scanning the newspaper advertisements, SMS messages on lucrative schemes of finance companies and multi-level marketing companies,” he said.
In the Friends of Police Scambusters Scheme started by the EOW, under which 450 persons, including retired officials from banks and financial institutions, have enrolled themselves for identifying fraudulent companies and alert the EOW.
People can alerts to eowscambuster@gmail.com or tneow@tn.gov.in. They can also send SMS messages to 9840584729.