ICICI Bank Limited

On March 26, 2018, the Reserve Bank of India imposed a ₹589 million — ₹58.9 crore — monetary penalty on ICICI Bank Limited. RBI stated that the bank had failed to comply with directions governing the direct sale of securities from its held-to-maturity portfolio and the disclosures required in connection with those sales. Banks classify part of their investment portfolios as held to maturity, a category subject to specific prudential and disclosure rules. RBI's enforcement release states that ICICI Bank did not adhere to the applicable directions and guidelines. The penalty was imposed under section 47A(1)(c), read with section 46(4)(i), of the Banking Regulation Act 1949. RBI expressly limited the meaning of the action: it said the penalty was based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and was not intended to determine the validity of any particular transaction or agreement between ICICI Bank and its customers. The case should therefore be described as a regulator finding of non-compliance with portfolio-sale and disclosure rules, not as a judicial finding of fraud or customer loss. The RBI release does not give a sufficiently precise period for the underlying transactions. To avoid creating unsupported dates, the timeline records the date of RBI's penalty order as the documented event and resolution date. Primary source — Reserve Bank of India: https://www.rbi.org.in/commonman/Upload/English/PressRelease/PDFs/PR2593E290318.pdf