ICICI Bank fined for operating without license in Hong Kong

11 April 2007

Mumbai: ICICI Bank has been fined Rs2.2 lakh by Hong Kong''s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) for working without licence in license.

The regulator has charged the bank with carrying on private banking business in Hong Kong without requisite licence, between June 15, 2004, and March 8, 2006.

The bank has also been ordered to reimburse investigation costs to SFC, which could be another HK$40,000.

The bank, based on the findings of an internal review conducted after the discovery of this incident in April 2006, has dismissed two employees, among whom was Arnab Basu, CEO, Hong Kong operations.

In January 2006, the bank was penalised along with select other banks by the Reserve Bank of India for violating know-your-customer guidelines in the IPO allotment scam in which multiple demat accounts were used by a string of investors to corner a large chunk of the retail portion in initial public offers.

ICICI Bank currently has subsidiaries in the UK, Russia and Canada, branches in Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Dubai International Finance Centre and representative offices in the United States, United Arab Emirates, China, South Africa and Bangladesh.