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State Bank of India – country’s largest lender today denied any wrongdoing on its part in money laundering allegations leveled by online media portal Cobrapost and that it will take action on those found flouting the norms.
Pratip Chaudhuri, chairman, SBI today speaking in New Delhi said that, “as far as we have understood (the sting) there is nothing serious.” He also said that the bank reports suspicious transactions (STR) regularly and on real time basis to financial intelligence unit (FIU) and has a special cell in Jaipur to monitor suspicious transactions. However the bank on its part is investigating the matter. “We have zero tolerance for money laundering and will take actions on those found to be flouting norms” Chaudhuri said adding that finance ministry has asked SBI to ascertain the facts in the allegation.
Today in the second part of its expose on money laundering in the country ,Cobrapost named 20 new financial institutions including four insurance companies who allegedly are involved in flouting of know your customer (KYC) norms, and helping customers to convert their illegitimate wealth (black money) into legitimate wealth (white money).
In today’s expose apart from top three private banks which were part of its first expose in March, Cobrapost named twelve public sector banks, four private sector banks and four insurance companies including country’s largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
Chaudhuri further said SBI is fully complaint of STR and KYC norms and there has been no instance of non compliance reported.
On the other hand Reserve Bank of India today said nothing irregular has been reported in the branches which were exposed by the Cobrapost last month. In a post policy conference call with researchers and analysts K C Chakrabarty, deputy governor, RBI said, “we have verified those branches and we have not found anything irregular there.”
He however reiterated that once banks reply after show cause notices which are yet to be issued, RBI will take appropriate actions based on their replies. RBI however said that on a systemic level there is need to strengthen the guidelines and as mentioned in the policy statement RBI is working on it.
