RBI to initiate action against private sector banks in money laundering allegations

12 Apr 2013 Evaluate

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to initiate action against the three private banks named in the recent sting operation - HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, which exposed willingness of bank employees to be accomplices in money laundering. When asked if RBI has completed investigations on the web portal's exposes, the RBI deputy governor H R Khan said, scrutiny has been done and action is being taken both in respect of systemic level and at the individual banks.

Further, it is reported that the standard operating procedure of the regulator once it identifies a violation is to issue a show-cause notice. Senior executives of the concerned bank are given a hearing and subsequently RBI decides on the penalty. At systemic level, the RBI is expected to come out with new norms on the incentive and sales process followed by banks in distribution of third party products such as insurance and gold bars.

This will be the first major action by the central bank following the enactment of the Banking Regulation Amendment Act, which empowers RBI to impose higher penalties up to Rs 25 lakh per offence. Along with penalties, the central bank had also come out with new guidelines on derivatives to prevent similar situations in future. However, this is not the first time RBI is taking concerted action against banks for violations which were seen as somewhat systemic issues pertaining to a section of banks.

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