The State Bank of India has asked its customers to immediately comply with the Know-Your-Customer guidelines, failing which their accounts would be frozen.
'All account holders of the bank who have not yet complied with the KYC guidelines are hereby requested to make their accounts KYC compliant by contacting their home branches and completing the required documentation latest by October 31,' SBI said in a notice.
As per provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 and the direction given by RBI, all customers are required to comply with KYC guidelines.
The RBI had advised banks to follow certain customer identification procedures for opening accounts and monitoring transactions of a suspicious nature. The RBI's instructions were based on recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force on anti-money laundering standards and on combating the financing of terrorism. Failing to comply with the guidelines would result in the freezing of account operations, it said.
"Several account holders have still not submitted local address and identity proofs, thereby violating the KYC guidelines issued by the apex bank on account opening," a senior SBI official said. Despite repeated reminders sent by the bank through registered and regular posts to such customers, there has not been any response yet and it seems they are not interested in operating the accounts, he said. The bank is giving a final notice after which the accounts would be frozen, the official added.
With a network of about 10,400 branches and over 13 crore (130 million) customers, SBI is India's largest bank.