Any violation of regulatory rules in the banking industry will not be tolerated, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Executive Director G Padmanabhan said.

Speaking at the occasion of the launch of a new domestic money remittance service by Western Union Money Transfer and Kotak Mahindra Bank, Mr. Padmanabhan said that he was quite intolerant to illegal financial activities like money laundering.

Mr. Padmanabhan, who supervises payment & settlement systems at RBI, said, "I don't know if crores of money has come out. But why the people who dealt with these kinds of transactions remain in the system? Personally, I am quite intolerant to that."

Nearly two months back, some of the country's top banks, including HDFC and Axis bank, were accused of facilitating money laundering activities to help customers evade taxes. The central bank said it didn't find any evidence of money laundering at the country's three top lenders, but imposed penalties of Rs 1-5 crore for violating `know your customer' (KYC) norms.

The Kotak Mahindra and Western Union's new direct money transfer service allows users to transfer money from a Western Union outlet direct to a Kotak Mahindra bank account at the other end of the transaction.

Using the new service, people will be able to transfer amounts ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 5,000 in a single transaction. Transferring funds of up to Rs 1,000 costs Rs 30, while the cost for transferring funds of up to Rs 5,000 soars to Rs 75.