The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on July 11, penalised three cooperative banks for not adhering to certain guidelines.
The central bank has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 2 lakh on Bihar-based The National Central Cooperative Bank as it failed to transfer eligible balances to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund and as it did not categorise its customers on the basis of its assessment and risk perception as low, medium and high, the RBI said in a release.
It has also imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 37.50 lakh on Mumbai-based The Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank for non-compliance with directions issued by National Bank For Agriculture and Rural Development, or NABARD, on classification and reporting of frauds.
Further, it has also imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 50 lakh on The Nasik Merchant’s Co-operative Bank as the lender continued to accept fresh deposits in existing accounts of other non-scheduled urban cooperative banks, the RBI said in a release.
The bank also did not phase out completely such inter-bank deposits by March 31, 2020, and opened a new current account of a non-scheduled urban cooperative bank and accepted deposits therein. Further, it also failed to pay applicable interest on deposits lying in the current accounts of deceased individual depositors or sole proprietorship concerns from the date of death of account holders to the date of settlement of claims.
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All three actions were based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and were not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers, said the RBI.
The central bank has stepped up the scrutiny of regulated entities to ensure compliance with corporate governance norms.
The regulator on July 8 had penalised Bank of India and Federal Bank for non-compliance of regulatory norms.
