RBI issues instructions to banks for data checking to deal with untoward transactions

NEW DELHI: With more and more instances of money laundering and fraudulent currency exchange surfacing, RBI today warned of stern action against wrongdoers and asked banks to carry out a thorough central data checking, while it suspended a "junior functionary" who is being investigated. "We have issued elaborate instructions to all banks to do the central data checking and wherever they find any inconsistency, it should be pursued further through their internal audit mechanism," said deputy governor of RBI, S S Mundra, speaking to media. "Our supervisors are also carrying out similar exercise on various data points of banks and wherever any untoward kind of transactions or actions are noticed, due action would be pursued and due investigation would be carried out," he said. The RBI informed that currency notes worth over Rs 4.61 lakh crore have been issued to public through banks and ATMs till December 10 following the demonetisation of old high value bills. The central bank said that about Rs 12.44 lakh crore of defunct notes have been given back to the banks. Earlier in the day, RBI has asked banks to retain their CCTV recordings of branch operations and currency chests between November 8 and December 30. "The banks are advised to preserve CCTV recordings of operations at bank branches and currency chests for the period from November 8 to December 30, 2016, until further instructions," the RBI said in a statemen. It said this was necessary "to facilitate coordinated and effective action by the enforcement agencies in dealing with matters relating to illegal accumulation of new currency notes". The apex bank had earlier issued a notification on October 27, prior to demonetisation, asking the banks to cover the banking hall/area and counters under CCTV surveillance and record to facilitate identification of people abetting circulation of counterfeit notes. The government has kept December 30, as the last date to deposit the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. (With inputs from agencies)