The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cancelled licences of 368 non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in the six months ended June, more than double the number of such cancellations in the whole of 2017, for failing to meet regulatory norms. The move is being seen as an attempt to clean up the sector, which has more than 11,402 entities, of which 222 are non-deposit taking NBFCs. Industry experts say a majority of the licences belong to NBFCs, which had failed to meet RBI’s requirement of net owned fund of Rs.2 cr. In fact, some NBFCs had surrendered their certificates of registration. Separately, the financial intelligence unit (FIU) classified close to 4,135 NBFCs registered with RBI as non-complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as on 31 July.

(Live Mint)