The Reserve Bank of India on Monday said it has imposed a penalty of ₹2.66 crores on Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait BSC, India. The apex bank penalised the banks for its operations for non-compliance with directions on cyber security framework.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also imposed penalties on 20 cooperative banks, including 17 from Gujarat for contravention of various norms. RBI said the Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait BSC, India operations failed to implement systems to detect unusual and unauthorized, internal or external activities in its database.
It also failed to implement a security operations centre for obtaining real-time/near-real-time information and insight into the security posture of the bank, and enable audit logs for the database and operating system of servers, among others, as per the statement.
A notice was issued to the bank asking it to show cause as to why a penalty should not be imposed on it for its failure to comply with the directions issued by RBI.
“After considering the bank’s reply to the notice, oral submissions made during personal hearing and additional submissions made by it, RBI came to the conclusion that the charge of non-compliance with the aforesaid RBI direction was substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty, to the extent of non-compliance with such directions,” it said.
Besides the co-operative banks of Gujarat, a penalty of ₹50 lakh has been imposed on Bassein Catholic Co-operative Bank, Vasai (Maharashtra); ₹30.85 lakh on The Delhi State Cooperative Bank, New Delhi; and ₹26,91,330 on The Andhra Pradesh State Co-operative Bank, Vijayawada.
The penalty on 17 cooperative banks ranges between ₹50,000 and ₹7 lakh. In each case, RBI said the penalties are based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and are not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the banks with their customers.
