 "RBI imposes penalty on ICICI Bank and YES Bank for rule violations")
The Reserve Bank of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on ICICI Bank for non-compliance with norms relating to loans, and a Rs 91 lakh fine on another private sector lender, Yes Bank, for violating norms relating to customer service and unauthorised operation of internal/office accounts, the regulator said on Monday.
RBI’s supervisory inspection found violations by both banks relating to their financial position as on March 31, 2022.
RBI found that ICICI Bank had sanctioned term loans to certain entities in lieu of or to substitute budgetary resources envisaged for certain projects, and without undertaking due diligence on the viability and bankability of the projects to ensure that revenue streams from the projects were sufficient to take care of the debt servicing obligations, among others.
On Yes Bank, the banking regulator found the lender levied charges for non-maintenance of minimum balance in certain savings accounts having insufficient/zero balance and opened and operated certain internal accounts in the name of its customers for unauthorised purposes like parking funds and routing customer transactions.
The regulator said these actions are based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and are not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transactions or agreements entered into by the bank with its customers.