RBI penalises ICICI Bank, ING Vysya

A penalty of Rs 30 lakh was imposed on ICICI Bank and Rs 55 lakh on ING Vysya Bank for violating KYC directives

The country’s largest private lender, ICICI Bank, and Bangalore-based ING Vysya Bank were penalised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday for violating the ‘know you customer’ (KYC) norms.

A penalty of Rs 30 lakh was imposed on ICICI Bank and Rs 55 lakh on ING Vysya Bank.

The penalties have been imposed for contravention of various directions and instructions issued by the central bank on ‘Know Your Customer norms/ Anti-Money Laundering Standards/ Combating of Financing of Terrorism (CFT)/Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, RBI said.

The central bank order further said these banks failed to obtain adequate documents for opening accounts, to carry out sufficient customer identification procedures, to ascertain the identification of natural persons behind entities and delay in filing the suspicious transaction reports.

 

Earlier, a showcause notice was served to these banks. The central bank has imposed the penalties after studying the banks’ responses, in the form of written replies and oral submissions.