The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slapped a penalty of Rs.9 crore on ICICI Bank Limited for non-compliance of directions issued by it.
The penalty has been imposed in exercise of powers vested in RBI under the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
RBI has imposed a penalty on the Bank for continued sale of government securities classified as HTM.
This is the highest penalty imposed by RBI on a bank for a single incident.
RBI guidelines
RBI guidelines require banks to classify investments into three categories - Held for Trading (HFT), Available for Sale (AFS) and Held to Maturity (HTM).
The securities acquired by the banks with the intention to hold them till maturity can be classified under HTM.
If the value of sales of securities from HTM category exceeds 5% of the HTM investments, banks are required to disclose in the audited annual financial statements.