A Reserve Bank of India audit has found certain ‘aberrations’ at ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, which were accused of money-laundering by an online portal, but no risk of systemic failure was discovered, Banking Secretary Rajiv Takru on Thursday said.

Wealth management services (WMS) undertaken by banks have gained substantial prominence in the reform era. With bank managements forced to look for additional avenues to boost profitability, catering to the rich through special products and niche services became common practice even among public sector banks. At the same time, disintermediation has been gaining hold in […]

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed penalties on Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank of Rs 5 crore, Rs 4.5 crore and Rs 1 crore respectively for violation of anti-money laundering norms. Noting that no money laundering appears to have taken place, RBI on Monday said that a conclusive inference can be drawn only by an end-to-end investigation by tax and enforcement agencies.

The sting operation conducted by the online portal Cobrapost on Monday came back to haunt the banks it had snooped on as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slapped a fine of Rs5 crore on Axis Bank, Rs4.5 crore on HDFC Bank and Rs1 crore on ICICI Bank for alleged violation of KYC norms and […]

In its latest expose, portal reveals ‘ethical bankers’ who refused to launder money in addition to charges on foreign banks

Global banking behemoths HSBC and Standard Chartered, whose employees were today accused of participating in money laundering in the latest sting operation by investigative website Cobrapost, have launched probes into the allegations. HT reports.

The Reserve Bank on Monday imposed a fine of .` 5 crore on Axis Bank, .` 4.5 crore on HDFC Bank and .` 1 crore on ICICI Bank for violation of KYC norms and anti-money laundering guidelines after inquiring into charges levelled by a online portal Cobrapost. “After considering the facts of each case … […]

‘Violation of some rules found but no evidence of money laundering’

The RBI on Monday imposed a fine of Rs 5cr on Axis Bank, Rs 4.5cr on HDFC Bank and Rs 1cr on ICICI Bank for violation of KYC norms and anti-money laundering guidelines. HT reports.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slapped monetary penalties on Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank for violating certain KYC and anti-money laundering norms following the central bank’s investigation into allegations made by the online portal Cobrapost.

India’s central bank ordered HDFC Bank Ltd., the country’s biggest by market value, Axis Bank Ltd. and ICICI Bank Ltd. to pay penalties for flouting rules including those on money laundering.

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India today imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on Axis Bank, Rs 4.5 crore on HDFC Bank and Rs 1 crore on ICICI Bank for violation of KYC norms and anti-money laundering guidelines after inquiring into charges levelled by a online portal Cobrapost.

The central bank penalized Axis Bank Rs.5 crore, HDFC Bank Rs.4.5 crore and ICICI Bank Rs.1 crore

But says no prima facie evidence of money laundering

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed fine on three private sector banks — Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank – for violation of KYC (know your customer) norms.

The RBI board makes no attempt to review its regulatory failures

MUMBAI: Banks involved in the investigation operations could face severe penalties running into crores of rupees as compared to past offences where penalties ranged from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. Higher penalties are a fallout of the amendment to the Banking Regulation Act 1949 and RBI’s decision to treat each breach as a […]

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government could look at reinstating audit system even in “smaller” branches with advances below Rs 20 crore following rampant violation of know your customer (KYC) norms by banks revealed by investigative website Cobrapost. Mahua Venkatesh reports.

K C Chakrabarty, RBI deputy governor Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty says the central bank has not found any evidence of illegal or irregular transactions by banks, as alleged by Cobrapost. In an interview with Manojit Saha, he also said banks may have indulged in “traffic rule violations” but “no accident has taken place”. Edited excerpts.
Irrespective of what Cobrapost has alleged, do you think the more basic issue is mis-selling of financial products by banks?

NEW DELHI: Investigative website Cobrapost has released further secret tapes to show alleged money laundering by more banks.

NEW DELHI: In a quick response to a finance ministry directive to identify and suspend any employee who can be identified in the Cobrapost video as appearing to advise potential customers in violation of the existing banking norms, public sector banks have suspended 15 employees. In addition to the 15 suspended, an employee of the […]

Public sector banks on Tuesday suspended 15 of their officers and employees, divested 10 of their work and asked half a dozen to proceed on leave, a day after Cobrapost expose revealed money laundering in PSU banks and financial institutions.

CASH CUSHION: To relieve banks from the excessive fund shortage caused mostly due to sluggish govt spending, RBI has bought Rs 1.3 lakh crore of bonds through open market operations in 2012-13

Banking stocks remain flat, with the broad-market indices, Sensex and Nifty, going up a marginal half per cent

NEW DELHI: Investigative website Cobrapost on Monday released fresh videos which alleged widespread wrongdoing by a host of financial sector entities including state-run giants State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation and private players such as Yes Bank, Federal Bank, Reliance Life Insurance, Tata, AIG and Birla Sunlife. If the first part focused on […]

NEW DELHI: Tinoo and Arvind Joshi, the suspended IAS couple from Madhya Pradesh, faced CBI raids soon after it was discovered that they had purchased life insurance policies from a private insurer. The high-value transaction could not have gone unnoticed. But there are several thousand cases that go undetected. For long, life insurance policies have […]

“We will also strengthen our money laundering rules and regulations and tighten the KYC requirements of banks,” he said.

GREY ANATOMY Website alleges money laundering, mismanagement, violation of know your customer laws

In what could be termed as a sequel to its earlier expose of private banks, investigative website Cobrapost on Monday released another set of videos through a sting operation, accusing several leading public sector banks and Government-owned as well as private insurers of indulging in money laundering.

NEW DELHI, MAY 6:
A sting operation has alleged the involvement of 23 banks and financial institutions (FIs) in money laundering.

Banks and insurance companies charged with allegations of money laundering and violations of Know-your-customers (KYC) norms as part of investigations by online magazine, Cobrapost, have denied any such instances.

‘Initiate a detailed scrutiny and institute special audit if necessary’

DFS Secretary advises banks to suspend erring employees, submit report

Web portal Cobrapost has accused ICICI,HDFC and Axis Banks of indulging in money laundering.

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that it will initiate action against the three private banks named in the recent sting operation by a web portal which exposed willingness of bank employees to be accomplices in money laundering. 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.

Witnessing a sharp value erosion in their scrips during the last quarter of the current fiscal, about 50 listed banks and non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs) of the country have lost nearly Rs 1.43 lakh crore in their market capitalisation in this period. The estimated 14 per cent percentage loss in the market value of banking […]

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has begun a probe into allegations that staff at Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank encourages customers to evade income-tax payments, siphon off funds overseas, and convert politicians’ bribe funds to legally acceptable wealth. The central bank’s probe follows a sting operation by Cobrapost.com, an online news provider, […]

BANGALORE: Reserve Bank governor D Subbarao on Friday said he couldn’t make a sweeping statement that there weren’t any illegal transactions happening in the banking system, but assured that the Indian system was safe and secure. Responding to a question on the sting operation conducted by online portal Cobrapost on three private banks, Subbarao noted that the […]

RBI on Thursday pooh-poohed money-laundering allegations against three private sector banks — ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank — saying that a recent sting by Cobrapost involved no real violation of law. HT reports.

The Reserve Bank of India on Monday said it has launched “comprehensive scrutinies” covering the head offices and branches of ICICI Bank

NEW DELHI: An undercover  investigation across India has shown up startling videos of bank executives of three leading private banks – HDFC, ICICI and Axis – providing ready assistance to a reporter, posing as a minister’s aide, for laundering black money into white through the banking system in clear contravention of banking norms and laws. […]

India’s top private banks — ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank — are involved in a big way in money laundering and facilitating deposits of black money in violation of all RBI and Income Tax norms. The banks were caught red handed in a nationwide sting operation by the Cobrapost, a leading investigative portal. Several branches of the three banks were probed by the portal.

The country’s top three private banks — HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank — said on Thursday that they have initiated internal investigations into allegations of “money laundering” levelled by a web portal against a number of their employees. The allegations were made by web portal Cobrapost after it allegedly conducted a sting operation […]

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has ordered an inquiry after an online portal claimed that three private banks of the country were indulging in money laundering. As the portal Cobrapost’s expose caused a flutter, CBDT Member (Investigations) K V Chowdary said in Mumbai that the Board has “taken cognisance of the Cobrapost (which […]

The Finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have decided to investigate allegations of widespread money laundering against the country’s three biggest private sector banks – ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank. The allegations were levelled on Thursday by news website Cobrapost.com, which claims to have carried out a investigation operation on […]

Two journalists – one of them arguably the country’s foremost investigative hacks – have been booked for abetting corruption.

Playing with childhood heroes was like a dream come true, even though it took some fudging