RBI slaps `59cr fine on ICICI

Mumbai, March 29: The Reserve Bank has imposed a penalty of `58.9 crore on the country’s leading private sector lender ICICI Bank for violating its directions on direct sale of securities.

“The Reserve Bank of India has imposed through an order dated March 26, 2018, a monetary penalty of `589 million on ICICI Bank Limited for noncompliance with directions issued on direct sale of securities from its HTM (held-to-maturity) portfolio and specified disclosure in this regard,” the central bank said in a notification issued today.

ICICI Bank said the violation was “due to a genuine misunderstanding on the timing of the applicability of RBI's directions in this matter”.

It said: “RBI has imposed a penalty on the bank for continued sale of government securities classified as HTM.”

The bank said it continued with the sales from HTM category for a few weeks during the quarter ended March 31, 2017.

It further said that it would give utmost importance to regulatory compliance and endeavours to meet supervisory expectations. It (fine) is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers, RBI said.

— PTI

BANKS NEED to classify investments into three categories of heldfor-trading, available-for-sale and held-for-maturity.