RBI imposes Rs 5 cróre penalty on Bank of Baroda

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has penalised the Bank of Baroda (BoB) Rs 5 crore ($754,000) for irregularities in anti-money laundering (AML) provisions that came to light in October 2015 during its audit, the public sector lender said here on Monday.

"The Reserve Bank of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 50 million on the Bank of Baroda. Pursuant to the internal audit of the bank, the RBI and investigative agencies in October 2015 were advised by the bank of certain irregularities observed," the BoB said in a BSE filing.

"The RBI carried out the investigation and noted the deficiencies which were reflective of weaknesses and failures in internal control mechanisms in respect of certain AML provisions such as monitoring of transactions, timely reporting to FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit), and assigning of UCIC (Unique Customer Identification Code) to customers", the bank said. 

The Bank of Baroda has implemented a comprehensive corrective action plan, to strengthen internal controls and to ensure that such incidents do not recur, it added.