RBI fines 22 banks including SBI, YES Bank for violating KYC norms

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed fines on 22 private and public sector banks for violating KYC/anti-money laundering norms.

The banks, which were slapped a total of Rs 49.5 crore, include State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB) and YES Bank.

"After considering the facts of each case... Reserve Bank came to conclusion that some of the violations were substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty," the central bank said in a statement.

A penalty of Rs 3 crore each has been imposed on State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and Federal Bank.



United Bank of India, Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Jammu & Kashmir Bank and Andhra Bank were slapped a penalty of Rs 2.5 crore each.

A penalty of Rs 2 crore each was imposed on YES Bank, Vijaya Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Dhanlaxmi Bank. The other banks which were penalised by the RBI include Deutsche Bank, Development Credit Bank, ING Vysya Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Ratnakar Bank.

Following probe into charges levelled by online portal Cobrapost, RBI also gave cautionary letters to seven banks, including Citibank and Standard Chartered.

The other banks that got the cautionary letters were Barclays Bank, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and State Bank of Patiala.

The central bank had earlier imposed fines totalling Rs 10.5 crore on top three private lenders - Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

Although the investigation did not reveal any prima facie evidence of money laundering, RBI said that "any conclusive inference in this regard can be drawn only by an end-to-end investigation of the transactions by tax and enforcement agencies".

With inputs from PTI