The Central Bureau of Investigation has sought details from some nationalised banks for its investigation into the alleged involvement of middlemen in facilitating loans for private companies. The agency is gathering information on disbursal of loans arranged through brokers, who were arrested along with suspended Syndicate Bank Chairman and Managing Director S.K. Jain in a bribery case.
Mr. Jain allegedly took money from representatives of Prakash Industries, to extend credit limit, and Bhushan Steel, for not declaring the loan amount as a non-performing asset. “We have sought details from different banks to crosscheck whether there was any irregularity,” said a senior CBI official. Among those arrested in the case was chartered accountant Pawan Bansal, who ran a company that facilitated bank loans to top corporates.
The agency, which is examining if a disproportionate assets’ case is made out against Mr. Jain, had initially registered two cases against him and 11 others.
मेरठ: बैंक ऑफ बड़ौदा में सीबीआई की एंटी करप्शन टीम का छापा -Bhaskar
मेरठ. सदर क्षेत्र में केले वाली कोठी के सामने स्थित बैंक ऑफ बड़ौदा की
ब्रांच में गाजियाबाद से आई सीबीआई की एंटी करप्शन टीम ने शुक्रवार को छापा मारा।
टीम ने रिश्वतखोरी के आरोप में लोन मैनेजर एस के गर्ग को हिरासत में ले लिया। टीम
ने करीब छह घंटे तक बैंक में दस्तावेजों की जांच की। इस दौरान किसी भी बैंक
कर्मचारी को बैंक से बाहर नहीं जाने दिया गया।
गाजियाबाद से आई सीबीआई टीम शुक्रवार को दोपहर लगभग तीन बजे बैंक ऑफ बड़ौदा की
आबूलेन स्थित शाखा पर पहुंची। टीम ने पहले शिकायतकर्ता को बैंक के अंदर भेजा।
शिकायत थी कि बैंक का लोन मैनेजर लोन पास करने के नाम पर रिश्वत मांग रहा है।
सीबीआई की टीम ने शिकायतकर्ता को बैंक के अंदर खुफिया कैमरा लेकर भेजा था। उसकी
रिकार्डिंग से पुष्टि हो गई तो टीम के अन्य सदस्य भी बैंक में आ गए।
अंदर घुसते ही टीम ने बैंक की शाखा के दस्तावेजों को खंगालना शुरू कर दिया। इस
दौरान टीम ने अपनी पूरी कार्रवाई को गोपनीय रखा। स्थानीय पुलिस को भी इसकी जानकारी
नहीं दी गई। बाहरी लोगों से किसी प्रकार की बातचीत नहीं की। करीब छह घंटे की जांच
पड़ताल के बाद सीबीआई की टीम अपने साथ बैंक के लोन मैनेजर को ले गई। माना जा रहा है
कि आरोपी बैंक मैनेजर को सीबीआई कोर्ट में पेश किया जाएगा।
Rs 1.5cr gold loan fraud in Howrah bank; supervisor kingpin: Police-Times of India
HOWRAH: Police have detected a gold loan fraud of nearly Rs 1.5 crore in Santragachi Co-operative Bank in which the bank supervisor and gold valuer were the alleged kingpins. News of the scam triggered panic among customers and there was a rush on Saturday to withdraw deposits.The modus operandi was very simple. Police say the plot was hatched by supervisor Milan Mashat with jeweler-gold valuer Arun Ansh and casual employee Kishore Pathak playing key roles. Pathak offered cash to unsuspecting unemployed youths to open accounts in the bank, and then made them apply for gold loans on "someone else's behalf" with fake gold. Ansh would certify the gold as genuine and Mashat would clear the loan, say investigators.
What's more, Trinamool Congress MLA Jatu Lahiri — who is chief advisor of the bank's managing committee — admitted on Saturday that he knew about the fraud a month ago. Sources say Ansh wrote a letter to the bank on August 16, admitting to his role in the racket. So why was the MLA silent all this while? Lahiri argued that the management had taken immediate steps. "Our first priority was to recover the money. The bank has lost about Rs 70 lakh of which we have recovered Rs 20 lakh. We didn't wish to inform police immediately as the three accused would have been arrested and there would be little possibility of recovering the money thereafter," he said, urging customers "not to panic as the bank is in good shape".
Six sectors play NPA spoilsport -The Telegraph |
Mumbai, Aug. 24 (PTI): The Reserve Bank has said about 36 per cent of the overall 4.1 per cent bad assets in the system have been created by six sectors of the economy — infrastructure, metals, textiles, chemicals, engineering and mining.
However, these sectors have only 30 per cent of the credit share.
The central bank, in its annual report for 2013-14, said gross non-performing assets (NPA) in the system had grown to 4.1 per cent from 3.4 per cent in 2012-13.
It also said the contribution of mandatory priority sector loans to the overall bad assets had come down during the last fiscal.
Stating that the state-run banks are the chief sources of stress, the central bank said these six specifically identified sectors alone contributed 36 per cent to gross NPAs against their 30 per cent contribution to total advances.
The gross NPA ratio for the non-priority sector grew to 4 per cent as of March 2014 from 3 per cent in the year ago period, while the same for priority sector stood stable at 4.4 per cent, it said.
Editorial: Reducing exposure-Financial Express
However, much of this is like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted and what’s needed is a much closer look at the promoter and his financial wherewithal before loans are sanctioned. As Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, State Bank of India (SBI) recently observed in this newspaper, what is important is the colour of the promoter’s equity and whether or not he has a Plan B in place. Also, as Bhattacharya pointed out, banks must check with other lenders to assess whether the equity being brought in for one project jeopardises the viability of another one. In this context, it is surprising that the central bank has left the company and group exposure norms for banks untouched for so long. The current norms—banks can lend 15% of their capital funds to a single company and 40% to a group—are way too high. The argument that the rules were relatively relaxed so as not to stifle growth in a developing economy might have been valid at one point in time, but with so many business groups having emerged, a tightening of the norms is long overdue. RBI states, in its annual report, that it intends to review them, indicating that the current group exposure of 40% of the bank’s capital—and 50% if infrastructure finance is included—needs to be brought in line with global standards. That would imply a lower exposure of 25%. Given how some groups seem to be perennially stretched financially, 20% might be safer, though there will be tremendous pressure on the political system to prevent this Real Full news Financial Express Under greater scrutiny, banks’ stressed asset sales to ARCs rise sharply-Indian Express With the CDR (corporate debt restructuring) route now coming under tighter regulatory monitoring, banks seemed to have found a new window to evergreen their stressed assets — asset reconstruction sector. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that banks sold stressed assets worth Rs 16,960 crore in 2013-14 as against just Rs 1,320 crore in the previous year. In the first quarter of 2014-15, banks have sold over Rs 15,000 crore to ARCs, almost equivalent to the full year’s figure last year. The full year of 2014-15 may witness asset sales of Rs 50,000 crore, say investment banks like Credit Suisse. The RBI is not happy with the new trend. “The improvement in NPAs during Q4 of 2013-14 needs to be cautiously examined in the face of the increased offload of loans to asset restructuring companies (ARCs) by banks,” the RBI said in its Annual Report. Out of Rs 16,960 crore asset sales in 2013-14, Rs 15,470 crore was accounted by public sector banks. Mega asset sales involving Bharati Shipyard (Rs 8,000 crore) and Hotel Leela (Rs 4,000 crore) were reported in the first quarter of this year. Why are banks suddenly attracted to offloading of loans to ARCs? According to the RBI’s Financial Stability Report, as most of the securitisation activity is taking place predominantly with the issuance of securities receipts (SRs) rather than cash, there is concern that banks may tend to use this option to evergreen their balance sheets. SRs may not carry the stigma of non-performing assets (their value mainly being derived from the collateral and not based on the record of recovery), although the risk of loss of income on the asset still remains, in effect, with the originator, i.e., the bank. Earlier this month, tightening the norms, the Reserve Bank increased the mandatory minimum holding in securities receipts from 5 per cent of the securities receipts issued by them to 15 per cent of the securities receipts of each class in each scheme, while granting them more time for due diligence. This means banks will get 15 per cent as cash which can be added to the P&L account and the balance will be given by the ARC over a period of eight years depending on the recovery. Massive corporate debt restructuring and asset sales to ARCs have aided banks to reduce the NPA level marginally. Gross NPAs increased from 2.4 per cent of gross advances in March 2011 to 4.4 per cent in December 2013, before declining somewhat to 4.1 per cent in March 2014. The RBI said the ‘real’ incremental value addition of ARCs in the process of ‘reconstruction’ of assets, over banks’ traditional skills and informational advantage (stemming from their credit appraisal, monitoring and recovery processes) needs to be assessed. Further, as the banking industry has a significant stake in the ownership of most of the ARCs presently functioning in India, the spread of risks may not be taking place effectively, it said. Link Indian Express India’s second largest bank loan default case has Surat connection, CBI probing the case -Desi Gujarat India’s second largest bank loan default case has Surat connection. Malabar Hills, Mumbai based Jatin Mehta led Winsome Group, which is into diamond trading, has now accumulated defaults of Rs 6,581 crore on loans from a consortium of 15 public sector banks including Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Central Bank— bringing it in competition with Kingfisher Airlines for the tag of India’s highest NPA (non-performing asset). The Central Vigilance Commission referred the case to CBI for criminal investigation as evidence emerging raise suspicion that there was a criminal conspiracy to defraud Indian public sector banks of about Rs 6,500 crore and take most of the money out of the country or divert it to other projects. The credit was given to three group companies — Rs 4,366 crore to Winsome Diamond & Jewelers, Rs 1,932 crore to Forever Precious Diamond and Jewellery and Rs 283 crore to Suraj Diamonds. Starting March 2013, the group started having problems repaying the loans. The banks sent a notice to it as a wilful defaulter on October 15, 2013, and in recent months the loans have been declared as NPA. Winsome promoter Jatin Mehta told the banks that his buyers of gold in UAE had defaulted on payments, making him unable to repay the loans. According to Mehta, the buyers suffered losses of $1 billion in derivatives and commodities trading. However the evidence raises questions about the oversight exercised by banks, customs department and regulatory bodies, especially those in the financial sector. However fresh details surfacing suggest that the group used to export gold jewellery and coins to 28 entities in Dubai and Middle East that were owned by Jatin Mehta and family.  |
No comments:
Post a Comment