RBI imposes penalty on Bank of India, Punjab National Bank totalling Rs 6 crore

Mumbai: The RBI on Monday imposed a penalty aggregating to Rs 6 crore on Bank of India and Punjab National Bank for contravention of norms, including one related to “Frauds – Classification and Reporting”. A penalty of Rs 4 crore has been imposed on Bank of India and Rs 2 crore on Punjab National Bank.

In a statement, the RBI said the statutory Inspection for Supervisory Evaluation (lSE) of Bank of India was conducted with reference to its financial position as on March 31, 2019.

The bank had also conducted a review and submitted a Fraud Monitoring Report (FMR) dated January 1, 2019 pertaining to detection of fraud in an account.

Examination of the risk assessment report pertaining to the ISE and the FMR revealed non-compliance with/contravention of directions, viz., breach of stipulated transaction limits; delay in transfer of unclaimed balances to DEA Fund; delay in reporting a fraud to RBI and sale of a fraudulent asset, the statement said.

In a separate statement, the Reserve Bank said the statutory ISE of Punjab National Bank was conducted with reference to its financial position as on March 31, 2018 (ISE 2018) and March 31, 2019 (ISE 2019).

The examination of the risk assessment reports pertaining to ISE 2018 and 2019 revealed non-compliance with/contravention of the aforesaid directions, viz., delay in reporting of frauds and not ensuring data accuracy and integrity while submitting data on CRILC platform/ to RBI, it said.

In both cases, notices were issued to show cause as to why penalty should not be imposed on them for such violations of the directions.

The RBI, however, added that the penalties have been imposed based on the deficiencies in regulatory compliance and are not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into them with their customers.