TIL Desk/Business/Mumbai/ The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday slapped a penalty of Rs 5 crore on Airtel Payments Bank Limited for violating know your customer (KYC) norms, an official statement said here.
“The Reserve Bank of India has imposed, on March 7, 2018, a monetary penalty of Rs 50 million on Airtel Payments Bank Limited for contravening the ‘Operating Guidelines for Payments Banks’ and directions issued by RBI on Know Your Customer (KYC) norms,” the statement said.
The apex bank said that this action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers.
The RBI further said cased on the complaints and media reports alleging that the Airtel Payments Bank had opened customer accounts without a clear/specific consent of the customers, a supervisory visit to the bank was undertaken by RBI between November 20 and 22, 2017.
“The supervisory visit report and other relevant documents, revealed, inter alia, contraventions of ‘Operating Guidelines for Payments Banks’ and the directions issued by RBI on KYC norms. Based on the documents, a notice dated January 15, 2018 was issued to the bank advising it to show cause as to why penalty should not be imposed for non-compliance with guidelines and directions issued by RBI.”
