Stating that the increased usage of e-commerce transactions is leading to an upsurge in frauds, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor H R Khan on Wednesday said there are "loopholes" in the present statutes, which need to be strengthened.

"Increase of e-commerce and information technology-enabled transactions has led to quite a few cyber crimes," Khan said while speaking at a seminar on 'Trends in Economic Offences' organised by the Mumbai Police.

"We fortunately have the Information Technology Act of 2000 which governs internet and mobile phones-based financial transactions. But, there are quite a few loopholes in the law that is a major area of concern", Khan told the audience comprising law enforcement officials without elaborating.

Even though the IT Act exists, quite a few districts in the state are yet to designate dedicated agencies like the cyber crime investigation cell formed by Maharashtra, he said.

On counterfeit notes, Khan expressed concern over the habit of not reporting on discoveries and said RBI has worked out a plan with the Union Home Ministry that entails having nodal police stations at every district to track fake notes.

"To encourage people, it has been decided to not file a first information report, which is considered tedious, till a limit of 5 pieces of fake currency," Khan said, adding the nodal body will send the data to the country's financial intelligence unit.

Touching on different financial frauds, the deputy governor pointed out to the instances where colour photocopies of a single set of documents were taken out to get multiple mortgage loans.

He said the National Housing Bank was in the process of creating a national registry of advances on housing loans to reduce such frauds.