Income Tax raids Axis Bank's Connaught Place, Noida branch

Income tax department raided Axis Bank Connaught Place branch on Thursday. Earlier in the day, I-T sleuths have also raided another Axis Bank branch in Noida sector 51 branches on Thursday.

At least 20 fake accounts of companies with deposits of over 60 crores have been discovered in the Noida raid. The accounts were being used by companies to turn black money to white money. (Read full story here)

On Wednesday, after a series of irregularities in exchange of old notes were detected at Axis Bank, the government has asked the country's third biggest private lender to "set its house in order." (Read full story here)

A few days ago, Income Tax officers Axis Bank branch in Chandni Chowk in Delhi and found 44 fake accounts. Income Tax officers found cash deposits worth Rs 100 crore in fake accounts. (Read full story here)

After demonetisation, Enforcement Directorate arrested two bank managers for converting black money into white from  Kashmere Gate branch of Axis bank in New Delhi.

Officials identified the two managers as Shobit Sinha and Vineet Sinha, working as managers in the Kashmere Gate branch of Axis bank in New Delhi were arrested, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). (Read full story here)

In response to continouous raids at its braches, the Axis Bank issued following statement:

"Axis Bank has rigorous compliance procedures and has also gone ahead and applied all our analytic capability to identify accounts that might have exhibited suspicious activity since demonetization.

"We would like to add that the investigative agencies have identified some potentially suspect accounts for which the Bank had already filed STRs in the past with FIU- IND. Apart from this the Bank has also files additional STRs with FIU in this period proactively. We understand that the visit by the investigative agencies to our branches has been pursuant to the CTR’s & STRs filed by the Bank under the extant KYC & AML norms as applicable to the Bank.

"The Bank has also taken the unprecedented step of temporarily suspending some of these accounts.

"We would like to assure you that Axis Bank stays committed to the success of the Government’s initiative of demonetization and facilitating transition towards digitalized economy. Axis Bank is committed to maintaining the strongest operational controls and has no tolerance for undesirable behaviours that circumvent laid out processes."