In an expose involving the country’s biggest private banks, Cobrapost, an online magazine, on Thursday aired a documentary in which it has allegedly claimed to have captured corrupt practices of these banks with respect to money laundering.

The documentary, which was screened at a press conference in the capital, shows senior-level officials of HDFC, ICICI and Axis banks across various branches in the country going about openly flouting financial norms by accepting deposits of black money running into crores to facilitate their conversion into white money.

Addressing the media before the screening of the documentary Aniruddha Bahal, editor, Cobrapost said “Our investigation spanning several months, unearths a vast, pan-India money laundering racket being run by the three banks. Almost all financial norms including the KYC norms, Income Tax Act, FEMA, etc have been violated by these banks and the practice is not restricted to just a few of their branches but is prevalent throughout the country.” Bahal further alleged that there was “serious connivance with senior management of these banks which sold money laundering as attractive products.”

Taking a dig at ministers demanding that black money stashed away in Swiss accounts be brought back to fuel domestic development Bahal remarked, “We do not need to go all the way to Switzerland and instead practices of these banks need to be probed because a huge chunk of the black money is still in India.”

The sting was carried out by a reporter fronting for a politician, who approached various branches of these banks in NCR, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai besides several other cities, to help the management and convert black money possessed by the politician.

The documentary shows senior bank officials of these banks readily agreeing to offer their services by suggesting various schemes into which the money could be deposited for a few years and later withdrawn without being liable for tax. Besides attractive insurance products, the officials have also been captured offering to deposit the black money into bank lockers and later routing them to various bank accounts to avoid raising any suspicion.

However, Governance Now has not been able to verify the authenticity of the claims made by Cobrapost.

Rubbishing all these claims, ICICI Bank through a statement said that it had set up a committee to probe the allegations. “The group conducts its business with the highest level of compliance to legal and regulatory requirements and we follow a zero tolerance policy towards any violation. All employees of the group are trained and required to adhere strictly to the Group Code of Conduct, including AML and KYC norms. We have constituted a high-level inquiry committee to investigate into the matter and submit its findings in two weeks,” the statement said.

HDFC too has said that the matter is being investigated on “top-priority”. According to a statement issued by the Bank, “Segregation of frontline sales activities and back office operations and post-transaction monitoring processes are in place to ensure independent checks & balances. Any deviation is viewed very seriously and stringent action is taken both at an organisational and employee level. We are concerned at the allegations that have appeared in the media. The matter is being investigated on top priority.”