RBI imposes penalty on HSBC, IIFL Samasta Finance for violating norms

Mumbai, Feb 28, 2025

With reference to HSBC's financial position as on March 31, 2023, RBI found that the bank had outsourced the disposal or closure of anti-money laundering (AML) alerts to a group company

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday imposed a penalty of Rs 66.60 lakh and Rs 33.10 lakh on The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) and IIFL Samasta Finance, respectively, for violating norms, according to its press release.

With reference to HSBC’s financial position as on March 31, 2023, RBI found that the bank had outsourced the disposal or closure of anti-money laundering (AML) alerts to a group company, failed to report unhedged foreign currency exposures of certain borrowers to credit information companies (CICs), and opened savings deposit accounts in the name of certain ineligible entities.

RBI imposed a penalty on IIFL Samasta Finance for charging interest on loans for a period prior to the actual disbursement of the loan or issuance of a cheque to certain borrowers, failing to classify certain loan accounts with overdues of 90 days or more as non-performing assets (NPAs), classifying certain loan accounts that were NPA as ‘standard assets’ without realisation of the entire arrears of interest and principal amount due, and allotting multiple customer identification codes to certain individual customers instead of a unique customer identification code (UCIC) to each individual customer. This was with reference to the company's financial position as on March 31, 2023.

[The Business Standard]