Tag: prompt corrective action

Uco Bank posts 7-fold jump in Q2 net, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Banking & Finance

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Public sector lender Uco Bank has reported a seven-fold jump in its net profit to Rs 205.3 crore for the second quarter this fiscal from Rs 30.1 crore for the same period last fiscal.

The city-based lender, which recently came out of the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) measure of Reserve Bank of India, has witnessed a significant improvement in its asset quality during the second quarter despite the fact that it recognized its exposure of around Rs 1,000 crore in Srei Infrastructure Finance and Srei Equipment Finance as non-performing assets (NPAs).

The Kolkata bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) earlier this month gave its approval to start insolvency proceedings against Srei Infrastructure Finance and its wholly-owned subsidiary Srei Equipment Finance after the Reserve Bank of India had filed insolvency applications against the two non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).

Uco Bank MD & CEO AK Goel, without mentioning the name of Srei, said, “It will be very premature to talk about the bad loan recovery from these two NBFCs. But we will remain optimistic that a good recovery should come (through insolvency resolution process).”

During the second quarter, the bank’s NPAs in absolute terms fell 3.6% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 10,909.7 crore from Rs 11,321.7 crore in the first quarter this fiscal. The Gross NPA ratio during the quarter under review declined 39 basis points sequentially at 8.9%.



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After 6 years, we are in for fresh start, says Partha Pratim Sengupta, MD & CEO of Indian Overseas Bank| INTERVIEW

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Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), which recently came out of the prompt corrective action (PCA) by the RBI, says it will chalk out strategies to accelerate growth. Partha Pratim Sengupta, MD & CEO, says since some earlier curbs have been done away with, the bank will be looking at expanding branches or restructuring some of them. Excerpts from his virtual interaction with the media:

What are the bank’s plans post exiting the PCA?

After being in PCA for almost six years, we are now looking for a fresh start to grow more in the coming quarters and definitely the bank would be much stronger in future. Since the restrictions on branch opening, recruitment of human resources and CSR activities have been removed, we will look at taking actions on those fronts. There has been no recruitment in the past six years, and the bank’s staff strength came down to around 22,000 from 28,000. In a couple of months, we will be revamping our branch expansion and recruitment policies.

What were the factors that contributed to the good performance in the second quarter?

It has been an overall growth, I won’t say a particular segment has given growth. It has been equitably distributed among retail, agri, MSME and corporate segments. If you  look at the performances of the past quarters, we have been steadily growing. Due to the Covid-19 impact, the economic growth of the country got muted and hence there was no scope for credit growth on the bank side. But post the vaccination drive, we are seeing positive outlook on the economic front.
Your net interest margin (NIM) declined during this quarter.

NIM, on a q-o-q basis has gone up, but yes, on a y-o-y basis, it has declined to 2.43% from 2.57. In the June quarter, our NIM was at 2.34%. If you look at the interest rates, almost all the bigger banks have reduced the interest rates.

What were the slippages during the second quarter? Any plans to raise capital?

We had a slippage of Rs 1,400 crore, contributed by two to three companies. Out of it, 60 to 70% was borne out of an NBFC. The bank had made around 80% provisions on these accounts. The bank is not anticipating any major slippages in the coming quarters, whatever slippages had happened were from the watch list. On the capital front, the bank would be raising up to Rs 1,000 crore during Q4 to meet tier-II capital norms.

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Soma Sankara Prasad likely to be next UCO Bank MD, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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New Delhi, The government is considering appointing Soma Sankara Prasad, the deputy managing director of State Bank of India, as managing director of Kolkata-based UCO Bank. The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) has suggested the name of UCO Bank Managing Director Atul Kumar Goel for heading Punjab National Bank as MD. The managing director position of PNB will fall vacant after the superannuation of S S Mallikarjuna Rao in January.

According to sources, since Prasad was in the reserve list when the interview for appointment for managing director of Indian Bank took place earlier this year, he has been recommended to head UCO Bank subject to various clearances including vigilance.

The final view in this regard would be taken by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister, sources said.

The BBB, the headhunter for state-owned banks and financial institutions, in May had conducted interviews for the position of MD of Indian Bank. Post interview, Shanti Lal Jain was recommended for the post while Prasad was the candidate on the reserve list.

Last month, the Reserve Bank removed UCO Bank from its Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) Framework following improvement in various parameters and a written commitment that the state-owned lender will comply with the minimum capital norms.

The lender also apprised the RBI of the structural and systemic improvements that it has put in place, which would help the bank in continuing to meet the financial commitments. The public sector bank plunged under PCA in May 2017.

PCA is triggered when banks breach certain regulatory requirements such as return on asset, minimum capital and quantum of the non-performing asset.

The restrictions disable banks in several ways to lend freely and force them to operate under a restrictive environment that turns out to be a hurdle to growth.

UCO Bank had posted over a four-fold jump in its net profit to Rs 101.81 crore for the first quarter of the fiscal ended June 30, as bad loans fell significantly.

The lender trimmed its gross non-performing assets (NPAs or bad loans) significantly to 9.37 per cent of the gross advances as of June 30, 2021, as against 14.38 per cent at June-end 2020.

The net NPAs were down at 3.85 per cent (Rs 4,387.25 crore) from 4.95 per cent (Rs 5,138.18 crore). PTI DP ANZ MR



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Timely recoveries crucial for profitability of sale-bound IDBI Bank, says Icra, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Timely recoveries will be a key driver of net profitability for IDBI Bank, in the absence of which it may remain at sub-optimal levels in the near to medium term, rating agency Icra has said.

“IDBI Bank’s profitability includes one-time income driven by recoveries from fully-provided legacy stressed assets, and it has utilised the same for accelerated provisioning on other stressed assets and potential asset quality stress in future. Incremental slippages could remain high, given the reasonably large overdue book amid the weak operating environment and certain other vulnerable exposures, the rating agency said in a note while upgrading the rating for the Mumbai-based private lender’s bonds, debentures and tier-II capital instruments from “A” to “A+”

While the bank maintains one of the highest provision coverage ratios on its stressed assets, the timing of recoveries from these could remain uncertain, it said.

The rating upgrade

The rating upgrade factors in the sustained improvement in the credit profile of IDBI Bank Limited with expectations that the internal capital generation is likely to be sufficient for growth as well as for maintaining sufficient cushion over the regulatory capital requirements.

Due to the weak asset quality and capitalisation levels in the past, IDBI Bank was placed under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework, thereby placing curbs on fresh wholesale lending. This, coupled with increased provision levels on NPAs, resulted in a sustained decline in the net advances to Rs. 1.23 lakh crore as on June 30, 2021 from the peak level of Rs. 2.19 lakh crore as on September 30, 2016. In contrast, the bank’s deposit base moderated less sharply to Rs. 2.23 lakh crore as on June 30, 2021, from Rs. 2.66 lakh crore as on September 30, 2016, that too driven by bulk deposits.

NPA generation

The bank has guided towards the normalisation of NPA generation at 2.0-2.5% in FY2022. However, this will remain contingent on its ability to contain incremental slippages, even as the overdue book, as indicated by the special mention account (SMA)-1 and SMA-2 book (corporate book and retail book combined), remained high at 3.6% of standard advances as on June 30, 2021 (3.3% as on March 31, 2021 and 3.4% as on March 31, 2020).

On a forward-looking basis, normalised operating profitability is expected to remain better compared to past levels although elevated operational costs on a reduced scale along with the continued impact of the high share of low/non-yielding assets on profitability will continue to weigh down the operating profitability, the rating agency said.



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RBI lifts PCA curbs on Indian Overseas Bank, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The Reserve Bank of India today lifted Prompt Corrective Action restrictions from the Indian Overseas Bank, the central bank said in a release.

The decision came after the bank reported its earnings for the year ended March 31, 2021, and the RBI observed that IOB was not in breach of the PCA parameters.

IOB has also provided a written commitment that it would comply with the norms of Minimum Regulatory Capital, Net NPA and Leverage ratio on an ongoing basis and has said that it would make structural and systemic improvements, RBI said in the release.

The RBI has said that it will continue monitoring the bank.

PCA is triggered when banks breach regulatory norms such as return on asset, minimum capital, among others.

Earlier this month, RBI had lifted PCA restrictions on UCO Bank. Now, only Central Bank of India remains in the list.



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Retail banking a growth story whose potential hasn’t been unearthed fully: IDBI Bank

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IDBI Bank is readying an “API (Application Programming Interface)-Banking” platform that will act as a bridge between third party entities such as account aggregators, payment service providers and fintechs, and its core banking solution platform to create a connected ecosystem, enhance customer experience and open up new revenue streams, according to Suresh Khatanhar, Deputy Managing Director (DMD).

In an interaction with BusinessLine, Khatanhar emphasised that retail banking is a growth story whose potential has not been unearthed fully. Excerpts:

Now that you are out of the prompt corrective action (PCA), will your bank re-balance its advances portfolio?

We came into difficulty because of the high provisioning arising from the Asset Quality Review (AQR) exercise (initiated by the Reserve Bank of India for banks in 2015). This had an impact on our capital. We had a little extra problem because of our Development Finance Institution (DFI) status in the past, whereby we had chunky exposure to infrastructure and core sectors. We addressed this by taking a few measures. Firstly, by de-risking the loan portfolio. Secondly, we revisited our risk management policies. Thirdly, we worked on the risk appetite framework, whereby we adopted a capital light business, so that we are future-ready.

Tumultuous journey of a development bank

Actually, during the PCA period (from early May 2017 till early March 2021), we could deep-dive into our process, products, risk management policies and also re-balance the portfolio. We were skewed in favour of corporate banking, where the risk is concentrated. Though we were not allowed to lend to corporates under PCA, we saw in it an opportunity to grow retail advances. So, our corporate to retail loans ratio is today at 38:62 (57:43 when PCA was imposed).

The portfolio composition shift happened because we were not doing corporate loans. But now that we have started doing corporate loans, this ratio, in all probability, will shift. But then this year, I don’t think retail advances go below 60 per cent (of total advances). We have decided that we will not go below 55 per cent in retail.

IDBI Bank net profit soars 318% to ₹603 crore in Q1 FY22

And then we had a lot of high-cost borrowing. Bulk term deposits were at about 36 per cent of total deposits. This has come down to about 8 per cent. Our CASA (current account, savings account) was about 32 per cent of total deposits. This is now at 52 per cent. So, this has helped us to improve our cost of funds and cost of deposits.

We would like to further consolidate and strengthen our balance sheet, which we have been doing for the last two-three years, and grow. It is now time to grow the loan book from here on.

Stress seems to be building up in banks’ retail portfolio. Isn’t retail lending becoming a bit risky?

Having decided to become a retail bank, we put in place a reorganised structure…And today, we have separate verticals for structured retail assets, micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture, and recovery as well as collection. We have separate processing centres. We have centralised operations. All these are very progressive steps, ensuring that risk is properly addressed…So, this way our operations have been segregated. And more importantly, this business model is a scalable one because retail is a volume game.

The retail banking story is a growth story. I don’t think the potential has been unearthed fully. It is a growing market. Today, the service sector is growing. People working in the sector want car loan, housing loan, personal loan, place deposits, make investments, and want various services…So, retail banking has the potential to grow.

Now in such a severe pandemic, which comes once in a century, anything under the sun can come under stress.

Our bank’s retail portfolio composition is a little different from other banks. We are not into unsecured loans and 93 per cent of our retail loan book is mortgage book, which is secured. Ninety per cent of the borrowers are salaried employees with credit score of above 700. While stress is there because of the pandemic, given this kind of borrower composition, revival is very much possible and easy. And today, even after the second wave of Covid, our collection efficiency is at pre-Covid level, which is 94-94.5 per cent….So, our retail banking model is well set and we have a committed sales force.

You mentioned being future-ready. Can you throw some light on this?

As soon as economic activity improves further, we would like to do more business, give more services to our customers…But simultaneously, our focus this year will be on digital penetration. We are working on various digital products. So, having made our balance sheet strong and robust, we would also like to make our infrastructure robust.

Now our API-Banking is also getting ready. This will help us integrate lot many apps so that we can onboard many fintechs, going forward.

API-banking will be integrated with our core banking solution platform. This will enable us to connect a lot of applications for cross-selling third party products, paying utility bills and credit card issuance, among others.

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Restored normalcy in PSU banks hamstrung by sticky bad assets: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman

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She said there are lot of changes happening in the banking sector at a fast pace through digitisation. (File)

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said the government was able to bring back normalcy with regards to mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) in most of the public sector banks that have been a cause of concern since 2014.

The Centre, apart from infusing required capital, monitored  the PSU banks with regular assessment and reviews while taking prompt corrective actions.

Inaugurating the centenary celebrations of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB) at Tuticorin, Sitharaman said the problems in banking sector are major problems that concern the entire country which also made everyone feel concerned about the sector.

“Post 2014, we had witnessed major NPA problems in the PSU banks, it took five to six years to reverse the trend and bring back normalcy in most of the banks. While the banks spent energy in the recovery process, even as trying to grow their businesses,” she said.

While speaking on bringing about the efficiency in the banking system, she said the way forward for any bank was to adopt complete technology-enabled solutions.

“Today financial technology is the biggest area and using that we could cross-populate data into forms. Auto-populating data of a consumer has been very useful and it can be done only through digitisation and the management of TMB should think of greater use of digitisation. Digitisation cannot be avoided for your own good and for the sake of customers,” she said.

She said there are lot of changes happening in the banking sector at a fast pace through digitisation. “There is no necessity to open a branch in a place which does not have a  bank. To reach a customer’s bank account of the people who live there, all kind of technologies are available today. Even sitting from Tuticorin one can serve the banking requirements of people living in small villages through technology”, she said.

Sitharaman said even during Covid-19 pandemic with the use of digitisation through banking correspondents, the government’s financial disbursements were distributed to the needy after verifying their details.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi was clearly aware that banking is important and did not hesitate that there can be zero balance accounts if they were opened under the Jandhan Yojana scheme, launched in 2014. He ensured that every one must hold a bank account and be able to transact,” she said.

K V Rama Moorthy, MD & CEO, TMB, said, “To help borrowers to overcome the adverse impact of Covid-19, till date, the bank has covered 13,753 beneficiaries and the exposure to the tune of Rs 1,567.62 crore. In the era of digital banking, we were the first bank to introduce robotics in currency chest to sort and bundling of currencies in order to provide quality service to the customers. Disbursement of loans to pharma and health care units will be at the heart of a year- long series of events and initiatives from us.”

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Bank will expand exposures on lower-rated, unsecured segment with proper due-diligence: AK Goel, MD & CEO, Uco Bank

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AK Goel, managing director & chief executive officer, Uco Bank

As the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to take Uco Bank out of the prompt corrective action (PCA) restrictions, the bank will now take exposure in non-fund business to boost its non-interest income and expand exposures on lower rated, unsecured segment with proper due-diligence, says its MD & CEO AK Goel. In an interview with Mithun Dasgupta, Goel informs the lender will look for expanding its branch network in the areas where it has low presence but growth potential is more. Excerpts:

As the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) restrictions on Uco Bank, will it help the bank grow its business faster?
Yes, Uco Bank can now go on non-fund business which attracts low capital and help in improving the bank’s non-interest income. It can now lend to borrowers which are highly rated but unsecured by keeping in mind the trade-off between risk and return.

Will the Bank now be able to disburse higher ticket size loans?
PCA had not put restrictions on lending to big ticket size loan, except some restriction on low rated customers, unsecured loans, exposure in non-fund based business. During the PCA restriction bank was cautious on lending to big ticket size except highly-rated and lending to this segment was restricted to AAA/AA , central/state government guaranteed loans, PSUs, customer with very high market reputations, etc.

What are the strategies to be taken going ahead for higher growth?
Even after removable of PCA restriction, the bank will be cautious in lending to risky sectors/customers. It will expand exposures on lower rated, unsecured segment with proper due-diligence and also factoring the trade-off between risk and return. The bank will take exposure in non-fund business to boost its non-interest income. It will continue to put more thrust on lending to retail, MSME, agriculture and better quality corporate customers to meet its higher growth requirements.

Will now Uco Bank plan to expand its branch network?
Yes, one of the restrictions under PCA was not to expand its branch network. Upon removable of restriction, the bank will look for expanding its branch network in the areas where it has low presence but growth potential is more.

At the end of the first quarter this fiscal, gross NPA ratio stood at 9.37%, while net NPA ratio was at 3.85%. Does the bank have any target on bringing down the NPAs further by this fiscal end?
The bank has strengthened its credit monitoring and recovery mechanism to arrest further slippages to NPA category and improve recovery from non-performing accounts.

These all efforts resulted that its net NPA ratio remained below 4% in June, 2021. We expect that the bank gross NPA ratio should come down below 8% and net NPA ratio at around 3% by this fiscal end.

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RBI takes UCO Bank out of PCA framework

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to take UCO Bank out of the prompt corrective action (PCA) restrictions.

This is subject to certain conditions and continuous monitoring.

With this, only two public sector banks – Central Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank – remain under RBI’s PCA framework.

High NPA and negative ROA

The Kolkata-headquartered public sector bank was put under PCA framework in May 2017 on account of high net non-performing assets and a negative return on assets.

Also see: RBI tweaks guidelines for card-tokenisation services

The RBI, in a statement, said the performance of the UCO Bank currently under the PCA framework of RBI, was reviewed by the Board for Financial Supervision. It was noted that as per its published results for the year ended March 31, 2021, the bank is not in breach of PCA parameters.

“The bank has provided a written commitment that it would comply with the norms of minimum regulatory capital, net NPA, and leverage ratio on an ongoing basis and has apprised the RBI of the structural and systemic improvements it has put in place which would help the bank in continuing to meet these commitments,” the central bank said.

Early intervention

PCA is a structured early intervention and resolution initiated by RBI for banks that become undercapitalised due to poor asset quality or vulnerable due to loss of profitability.

PCA entails restrictions on dividend distribution or remittance of profits, requirement on promoters to bring in more capital, restrictions on branch expansion, higher provisioning requirement, and restrictions on management compensation.

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RBI lifts Prompt Corrective Action restrictions on UCO Bank, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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FILE PHOTO: The Reserve Bank of India seal is pictured on a gate outside the RBI headquarters in Mumbai, India, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

The Reserve Bank of India today lifted Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) restrictions on UCO Bank, after the Board of Financial Supervision reviewed the financials of the bank, the central bank said in a statement.

The central bank said UCO Bank provided a written commitment that it would comply with the norms of Minimum Regulatory Capital, Net Non Performing Assets and Leverage ratio on an ongoing basis.

UCO Bank will, however, be continuously monitored by the RBI.

Earlier in June, UCO Bank Managing Director Chief Executive Officer AK Goel said that he was hopeful that the central bank would lift PCA restrictions on the bank.

PCA is triggered when banks breach regulatory norms such as return on asset, minimum capital, among others.

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