The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday alleged banks are performing “unethical practices” in collusion with big e-commerce companies.
The traders’ association alleged that banks and e-commerce companies had colluded to provide cashbacks and incentives to a section of people, constituting discrimination and violating policies such as the ‘Fair Practice Code for Banks’.
The letter listed State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda (BoB), ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Citi Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HSBC Bank and RBL Bank for their “unholy alliance” with Amazon and Flipkart in its letter.
It termed the joint workings as the “cartelisation of banks” and further alleged that the banks have partnered with multi-national companies to “destroy indigenous businesses.”
It added that banks were partnering to flout policies and government rules which has caused “mass scale damage to small Indian businesses against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for Atmanirbhar Bharat.”
“The track record of the Banks in the instant matter amounts to a clear cut case of discrimination between the people of India which is a gross violation of Article 19 and Article 301 of the Constitution of India and Fair Practices Code of RBI for Banks. It also violates Section 3(1) read with Section 3(3) of the Competition Act, 2002,” said the letter.
CAIT noted that banks give incentives such as 10 per cent cashback to customers for using their respective banks cards for purchases online, but do not extend the same benefits offline.
“Such collusion restricts offline traders from conducting smooth business and therefore amounts to breach of Article 19 and Article 301 of the Constitution of India which guarantees Right to Trade to every citizen of India,” it added.
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