Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:
- Dr. R Bhaskaran, Strategic Training Advisor in Banking & Finance
- Mr. SK Datta, Former Advisor & Chief General Manager, Bank of India
- Mr. Rajiv Rai, former Chief Digital Officer, Edelweiss
- Mr. P B Prakash, Head-Financial Institutions Group, Indusind Bank
- Mr. Anutosh Bose, Executive Director- Asset Management, Nomura
- Mr. Prasanna Divekar, Principal, Renaissance India Partners
- Mr. Vishwas Patel, Director Infibeam Avenues Limited, Founder CCAvenue Payment Gateway
- Mr. Ashok Kumar, General Manager & CTO, Karur Vysya Bank
- Mr. Alok Karkera, Head – India Public Sector & North India Financial Institutions Group, Corporate Banking
- Mr. Probir Roy, Co-founder, Paymate
- Mr. Brahma Mahesh Khaderbad, Co-Founder & CEO at FinMomenta Pvt Ltd
- Mr. Ravi Kadam, Business Technologist, Freelance
- Mr. Jayesh Shah, CEO, Prism Cybersoft Private Ltd
- Mr. Abhishek Arun, Senior Vice President, Paytm
- Mr. Sony A, Jt. General Manager, South Indian Bank
- Mr. Saurabh Sharma, Head-Consumer Banking, India, DOHA Bank
- Mr. Yogesh Gupta, Former Head Online Remittances- Money2India International Banking Group ICICI Bank
- Mr. Riaz Maniyar, Founder & CEO at easy2lend.com
- Mr. Sugata Ghosh, Associate Editor at The Economic Times, BCCL
- Mr. Neeraj Chandra, Head of Operations and Technology, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Mr. Shirsha Ghosh, Co-Founder Torit Innovations
- Mr. Raghu Veer Dendukuri, Founder, Ideal Nation, and Solution Architect at Invincible Tech Systems Inc.
- Mr. Kamonasish Aayush Mazumdar, Founder & CEO at Foodieverse
- Mr. Sharad Goklani, CTO at Equitas Small Finance Bank
- Mr. Mohammad Hassan, Project management expert
- Mr. Avro Mukerji, Investment Counselor- NRI Burgundy, Axis Bank
- Mr. Alok Dhawal, Team Manager, Debt Capital Markets, L&T Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd
- Mr. Abhishek Mody, Associate Director-Payment & Digital Initiatives, IDFC Bank
- Ms. Kaunain Esmile, Vice President- Country lead Customer experience, DBS Bank
- Ms. Hemal Vira, GEVP & Head- NRI Products, Remittances, and International Alliances, YES Bank
- Mr. Pratap Ghosh, Head Liabilities Product Group, Bandhan Bank Ltd
- Ms. Sakshi Malik, Product Head- Liabilities, PPI & Cards at Jio
- Mr. C. K. Vardharajan, former Vice President, Equitas Small Finance Bank
- Vikas R Panditrao, Co-Founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
- Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous
After the PMC incident, another instance led to panic among people when the RBI imposed a moratorium on YES Bank restricting withdrawals at Rs. 50,000 per depositor on 5th March 2020, because of the poor financial health of the bank due to bad loans. (It is to be noted that the Reserve Bank of India has removed the moratorium imposed on YES Bank now by enabling the customers to access the banking services from March 19, 2020)
Well, when the moratorium was imposed the Reserve Bank assured the depositors of the bank that their interest will be fully protected and there is no need to panic. In terms of the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, the Reserve Bank would explore and draw up a scheme in the next few days for the bank’s reconstruction or amalgamation and with the approval of the Central Government, put the same in place well before the period of a moratorium of thirty days ends so that the depositors are not put to hardship for a long period of time.
Well, another instance of the institution has failed but promoters and CEO have prospered! It is time to address the issue of the monumental salary of CEO and limited liability of promoters, thanks to regulations like being paid low ROI and not allowed to withdraw own funds. So how can bankers say now that their role is safe-keeping of depositor money?
So this time the FIAKS community debate was around, ‘Government asking SBI to form a consortium to buy a stake in YES Bank’ [1]
And the first question that posed up was How will this work, PSU taking over Private Bank? To clarify here, it’s only a buying stake and not a merger. It could be a stop-gap solution to save a bank from failing. That’s why a consortium that might stabilize the bank till real investors are found. The same thing happened when LIC was asked to buy IDBI shares. Now the Government is planning to sell both LIC and IDBI stake.
Also while the poor PMC Bank depositors suffer, the big investors and speculators in YES Bank get a taxpayer bailout. Isn’t this unfair?
Well, government blanket undertaking to protect all depositor money is a bad precedent and it also shows gross unfairness to the existing depositors of PMC bank who are struggling for several months without any assurance or resolution in sight. Government reliefs should be restricted to retail depositors up to a threshold and not corporate deposits. (Note that retail depositors are individual customers while corporate deposits include large commercial companies, public institutions, government agencies, etc)
This is an effort to support YES Bank to survive, with SBI led Consortium taking the responsibility to bailout YES Bank. Now here’s some food for thought:
- While this kind of bailout is expected to survive large organizations (that are on the verge of failing), the question is right in the scope of, what will be the future of customers and their trust upon these financial institutions?
- While Government & RBI may not bail out all banks (where frauds happened), and it should not do as well, it also cannot leave those affected customers of such banks in a state, where they potentially lose their hard-earned money (that too after paying taxes on received interest as well), creating a situation, that makes them lose confidence in bank deposits.
- While recent Finance Minister’s announcement in budget, brings in little relief as Savings Account deposits up to Rs.5 Lakhs will be secured, then if you imagine why banks, RBI & Government are not able to assure every bank customers w.r.t. their savings deposits, in terms of no questions asked and 100% guaranteed payback? Is it that difficult? Are Government and RBI ready to lose the trust of savings depositors?
- Can bank customers not expect that minimal responsibility from financial institutions (whose major expertise is loan underwriting, in addition to management of transaction lifecycle & payments)
Now let’s just go through how the moratorium imposed on YES Bank created panic and what were its immediate impact and long term implications;
Here’s a quick update which was shared by a member on the immediate operational impact that happened due to the moratorium imposed on YES Bank on March 5, 2020: (Please note that these are past updates of immediate impacts on March 5) REGISTER AND READ the complete discussions