Following the Cobrapost exposé, the central bank investigation found prima facie evidence of KYC violations. It however, did not find any substantial info on money laundering and said, any conclusive inference can be drawn after investigation of the transactions by tax and enforcement agencies
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed penalties on Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and
ICICI Bank for violating guidelines related to “know your customer” (KYC) rules. The RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs5 crore on Axis Bank, Rs4.5 crore on HDFC Bank and Rs1 crore on ICICI Bank.
The RBI rap on the three private sector banks in the wake of the Cobrapost exposé affected their share prices in morning trade on Tuesday. However, the impact was not significant since the banking regulator’s investigations prima facie did not find any evidence for the more serious charge of money laundering.
“...the investigation did not reveal any prima facie evidence of money laundering. However, any conclusive inference in this regard can be drawn only by an end to end investigation of the transactions by tax and enforcement agencies,” the central bank said in a statement.
During March and April 2013, RBI said it investigated scrutiny of accounts, compliance systems, internal control and processes of these banks from the private sector at their corporate offices and braches. The investigation revealed violation of certain regulations and instructions including …
Earlier, the central bank had issued show-cause notices to ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank. In a statement, RBI said, “After considering the facts of each case and individual bank’s reply, as also, personal submissions, information submitted and documents furnished, the Reserve Bank came to the conclusion that some of the violations were substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty.”
At 11.40am, ICICI Bank was trading 3% down at Rs1,085, while Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were trading 2% and 0.5% at Rs1,329 and Rs674, respectively on the BSE, while the benchmark Sensex was 1.1% down at 19,228.
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There is still no admission of guilt from any of the banks mentioned, while small depositors and S/B account holders are receiving calls from their RM's to update their KYC's as directed by RBI(its a 2008 circular)otherwise the accounts will be frozen. I personally had to get this done with HDFC Bank.