Former OCC official caught lying about his employment history and education

Recent reports brought controversial news to light regarding a former Chief Fintech Officer at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The official had presented the OCC with a false CV when seeking employment, claiming that he worked at numerous high-profile financial institutions.

OCC hired a fraudster as its Chief Fintech Officer

The official in question is Prashant Bhardwaj, who joined the OCC earlier this year as the lead of the new Office of Financial Technology. In this new department, he took on the role of deputy comptroller and chief financial technology officer.

At the time, the OCC issued a statement announcing Bhardwaj’s ascent to the position, saying that he had nearly 30 years of experience in the financial industry, serving in a variety of roles across the sector.

However, as it turns out, Bhardwaj did not actually work at any of the positions listed in his CV. In fact, he did not even work for at least one financial institution among the listed ones.

His CV said that he was the CIO at Fifth Third Bank between January 2006 and March 2010, and after that, he took up the same position at Huntington Bank. Both banks have denied that he ever held that role, while Fifth Third’s spokesperson revealed that Bhardwaj never worked for the bank at all.

Another claim said that Bhardwaj worked for Citi Bank in 1994, when, in fact, he was only 13 years old at the time.

Interestingly enough, Bhardwaj left his $300,000-a-year job by the summer of this year, only a few months after getting it. He was then replaced by Miriam Bazan, one of the OCC veterans, who was a temporary replacement until the agency hired Donna Murphy, another OCC insider.

Apart from lying about his employment history, Bhardwaj also seemingly provided false information regarding his educational credentials. Plus, he also has an extensive criminal history on top of that, according to recent reports.

OCC’s due diligence is being brought into question

Commenting on the revelations regarding Bhardwaj’s false CV, a senior fellow at the Richman Center for Business, Law & Public Policy at Columbia University and managing principal of Broadmoor Consulting, Todd Baker, said that he was fascinated by Bhardwaj’s expectations that lying about his resume would work and that he thought he would get away with it.

However, the problem is that it did work, and he did get away with it, as no one realized that his claims were false for over half a year. Baker noted that Bhardwaj’s claims regarding his former positions were likely to be quickly revealed as lies once he found himself inside OCC, which may very well be what happened and the reason why he left the position during the summer.

Unfortunately, the OCC refused to comment, stating that it is against its policy to provide comments on personal matters. But, the fact that he even got the job in the first place has raised a number of eyebrows, as well as questions regarding the OCC’s due diligence.