RBI Imposes Rs12.98 Lakh Penalty on 4 Cooperative Banks from Maharashtra, 1 from Gujarat
Moneylife Digital Team 19 September 2025
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs12.98 lakh on five cooperative banks, including four from Maharashtra and one from Gujarat, for non-compliance with the directions issued by the banking regulator. The highest penalty of Rs4.50 lakh has been imposed on Maharashtra-based Chandrapur District Central Co-operative (DCC) Bank Ltd.
 
Other banks penalised by the RBI include Maharashtra-based Bharat Cooperative Bank (Mumbai) Ltd, Jalgaon DCC Bank Ltd, Yavatmal DCC Bank Ltd, and Gujarat-based Ahmedabad Mercantile Co-operative Bank Ltd.
 
Chandrapur DCC Bank has been penalised for contravention of provisions of Section 26A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (BR Act) and non-compliance with directions issued by RBI on know-your-customer (KYC). 
 
RBI’s statutory inspection, which was conducted by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), found several lapses at Chandrapur DCC Bank. The inspection revealed that the lender had failed to transfer eligible unclaimed amounts to the depositor education and awareness fund (DEA Fund) within the prescribed time. 
 
The inspection also noted that Chandrapur DCC Bank had also failed to upload customers' KYC records to the central KYC records registry (CKYCR) within the required timeline and had issued multiple customer identification codes to certain individuals instead of assigning a unique customer identification code (UCIC) to each customer.
 
Mumbai-based Bharat Cooperative Bank has been penalised Rs3.75 lakh by RBI for non-compliance with directions on reporting unusual cybersecurity incidents. The lender failed to report incidents such as unplanned downtime, which caused significant customer service disruptions due to the non-availability of its IT systems.
 
RBI also inspected Jalgaon DCC Bank and found that it had sanctioned director-related loans and allotted multiple customer identification codes to certain individual customers instead of a UCIC for each individual customer.
 
As a result, RBI imposed a penalty of Rs3.50 lakh on Jalgaon DCC  Bank.
 
Yavatmal DCC Bank has been penalised Rs1 lakh for contravention of provisions of Section 20 of the BR Act. The lender had sanctioned director-related loans.
 
Ahmedabad Mercantile Cooperative Bank has been fined Rs23,000 by RBI for non-compliance with directions on membership of credit information companies (CICs). The lender failed to submit certain credit information of its borrowers to CICs as of 31 March 2024.
 
RBI says its action against these five cooperative banks is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce on the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the banks with their customers.
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