Indian cenbank partially relaxes restrictions on SBM Bank India

BENGALURU (Reuters) -The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Tuesday it had decided to partially relax the restrictions on SBM Bank (India) until March 15, by allowing ATM and point-of-sale transactions on internationally active debit cards issued by the bank.

Last week, the RBI ordered SBM Bank to stop all transactions under the liberalised remittance scheme (LRS) – which allows Indian residents to send up to $250,000 abroad each financial year – until further notice, citing "material supervisory concerns" but without giving any further details.

SBM Bank was engaging with the RBI to address "supervisory concerns", the lender said a few days later in an email to a customer that was reviewed by Reuters.

"The bank has since initiated corrective actions and made a submission for relaxation of the restrictions," the RBI said in a statement.

The central bank said the relaxation under LRS was based on SBM's submission and also to provide relief to affected customers.

SBM Bank India is a unit of the State Bank of Mauritius and became the first foreign bank to receive a universal banking licence under an Indian scheme for wholly owned subsidiaries, which allowed foreign lenders to compete with Indian banks.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)