Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on thursday downplayed the money-laundering allegations against three top private sector banks saying the country?s regulations to prevent the siphoning off, of money through the banking system, for criminal activities were ?perfect.?

?Allegations do not mean flouting ?know your customer (KYC)? norms. There is not a single transaction that has taken place,? RBI Deputy Governor, KC Chakrabarty said, adding that ?KYC violations happen in any system and these are all transactional issues and have nothing to do with money laundering.?

Chakrabarty was commenting after an high level internal meeting between RBI and top executives of 30 banks, including HDFC Bank?s Aditya Puri, ICICI Bank?s Chanda Kochhar, Axis Bank?s Shikha Sharma, SBI?s CMD Pratip Chaudhuri and Punjab national Bank’s KR Kamath to mainly discuss risk-based supervision in banks.

Although the risk in the system and way to avert such risks were discussed at the meeting, the decision to hold the event was not triggered by the sting operation conducted by a media house on ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank, the deputy governor said.

?Let us not unnecessarily downgrade ourselves. Our money laundering system is perfect there is nothing wrong there. May be other irregularities like KYC, suspicious transactions could be happening for which there are sufficient guidelines that banks are following,? the senior most DG of the RBI said, responding to questions after the meeting between bankers and RBI executives. Chakrabarty also said KYC norms cannot be made too stringent as the country was trying to include rural regions in a big way and very stringent norms could deter such efforts.

The remarks came even as the RBI, finance ministry and the banks concerned are probing the allegations that some officials of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank offered to facilitate money laundering. RBI has said final reports will be completed by March 31 and any further course of action, as necessary, will be initiated.

CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar said they have hired Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to independently investigate the matter and the report will be out before March 31.

Meanwhile, following the allegations, the banks had also suspended some employees in question.