RBI imposed monetary penalties worth Rs 40 crore on 211 entities in 2022-23

Out of 211, 176 penalties worth Rs 14.04 crore were alone imposed on cooperative banks, Bhagwat Karad told Lok Sabha on Monday

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed monetary penalties worth Rs 40.29 crore on 211 banks and other entities, Bhagwat Karad, minister of state for finance told Lok Sabha on Monday. Out of 211, 176 penalties worth Rs 14.04 crore alone were imposed on cooperative banks.

According to the data shared by Karad, cooperative banks were followed by 11 penalties on non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and seven on private sector banks and public sector banks each.

The total penalties on NBFCs amounted to Rs 11 crore. On private banks and public banks, the penalties amounted to Rs 12.17 crore and Rs 3.65 crore, respectively.

"As per inputs received from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it conducts inspections of the regulated entities (REs) under extant provisions of various statutes such as the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. With the enhanced offsite and onsite capabilities, the focus and scope of such inspections have improved in recent times," he said while tabling the data.

"RBI examines the compliance to its guidelines on a sample basis during the supervisory assessment and any non-compliance is taken up with the respective supervisory entities for rectification apart from initiating supervisory/ enforcement action, as deemed fit," he added.

Five penalties worth Rs 4.65 crore were imposed on foreign banks. Two penalties each were imposed on small finance banks (Rs 0.97 crore) and housing finance companies (Rs 0.10 crore). Data showed that one penalty of Rs 0.42 crore was imposed on a regional rural bank.

"RBI has issued guidelines on fair practices code to be adopted by banks, NBFCs and HFCs, and these guidelines cover various aspects related to lending such as transparency and disclosure of various terms and conditions of loan and changes therein, inappropriate behaviour during recovery of loans, the release of securities after repayment of the loan, loan appraisal etc," Karad said.