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RBI fines Axis Bank, IDBI Bank

RBI slaps fines on private lenders for deficiencies in regulatory compliance; Axis Bank to pay penalty of Rs 93 lakh and IDBI Bank Rs 90 lakh.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slapped fines on private lenders Axis Bank and IDBI Bank for deficiencies in regulatory compliance.

Axis Bank will have to pay a penalty of Rs 93 lakh and IDBI Bank Rs 90 lakh.

Axis Bank was penalised for not complying with certain directions issued by RBI on loans and advances, KYC guidelines and for non-maintenance of minimum balance in savings accounts.

RBI said Axis Bank violated certain norms by not maintaining the prescribed margin in case of intraday facilities sanctioned to stockbrokers.

"The Bank also followed restrictive practices in sale of insurance products to customers, failed to verify the copy of officially valid documents so produced by the clients, with the originals, while establishing account based relationships, had instances of customer IDs having multiple CIFs instead of a Unique Customer Identification Code (UCIC), and levied penal charges for non-maintenance of minimum balance in savings bank accounts, not directly proportionate to the extent of the shortfall observed," RBI said.

IDBI Bank was penalised for non-compliance with directions issued by RBI on frauds classification and reporting by commercial banks and select financial institutions. RBI said IDBI Bank reported frauds with delay. The lender submitted flash reports in respect of frauds involving an amount of Rs 5 crore and above to RBI with delay. It also failed to implement time restrictions on holidays and data access control for corporate net banking to put through fund transfer resulting in unauthorised debit transactions in the account of two co-operative banks.