Page 6 - BANKING FINANCE November 2015 ONLINE
P. 6
BANK UPDATE
Bandhan ropes 5L accounts in 25 days Dist banks forced to
open a/cs without KYC
Bandhan Bank, the youngest private Ghosh, CEO and MD Bandhan Bank. He verification
bank of India, added that a new range of loan prod-
has already ucts like housing and car loans has al- The managers of public sector bank
bagged in ready been tested and these products branches in cer-
five lakh new have helped increasing its account tain districts of
customers holder base from 14.3 million to 14.8 West Bengal are
million. under tremen-
since its commencement of operation dous political
on August 23. The bank leveled up Rs.50 crore as
deposit on the very first days of its pressure to allow individuals to open
"The response had been more than launch and plans to mop up more accounts without proper cross veri-
what we had expected. We initially money to bring down the cost of funds. fications.
started operation with 7.8 million cus- The bank has decided to keep its base
tomers and over the last couple of days rate at 12.5% even though it has kept Bankers would soon take up the
there has been an increase in number the deposit rather competitive in a bid matter with the West Bengal Gov-
of customers and now we stand at 8.3 to build a low-cost deposit base. ernment so that in future every cus-
million. The company is yet to start full "Bandhan is offering 8.5%, with addi- tomer undergoes verification as re-
fledged credit operation and once that tional 50 basis points for senior citizens quired under the Know Your Cus-
happens the customer base will in- on five year fixed deposits," he added. tomer (KYC) guidelines set by the
crease rapidly," said Chandra Sekhar RBI.
New base rate norm to impact banks' profit by crores, The districts where such complaints
says Crisil are rampant include Malda,
Murshidabad, Birbhum and
The RBI's new draft guidelines on cal- cantly impact profitability of banks," it Burdwan. Although bank managers
culating the base rate based on the said. approached the police for action but
marginal cost of funds method will sig- the cops have turned a blind-eye. In
nificantly impact the profitability of The RBI guidelines, released earlier some cases, even the complaining
banks, giving them a one-time require the banks to follow the 'mar- manager was heckled for approach-
Rs.20,000 crore profit jolt, declared ing the police.
Crisil. gin cost of funds' method
for base rate computation The managers of such banks
Crisil Ratings said that un- from April 1, 2016. brought the matter to the notice of
der the new math, the the higher authorities, which in turn
base rate could be lower "The actual impact will de- has taken up the issue with repre-
by around 50 basis points. "The Re- pend on whether the banks sentative in the State Level Bankers
serve Bank of India's draft guidelines on will be given leeway to Committee (SLBC).
computation of base rate, if imple- make this shift over a longer time-
mented in its current form, will signifi- frame in the final guidelines," said Bankers in SLBC, instead of waiting
Pawan Agrawal, Chief Analytical Of- for the next meeting has already in-
ficer, Crisil Ratings. timated the matter to the state
government to ensure police sup-
Paytm payments bank to hire non-banking CEO port and security for banking staff
and managers facing such pressure
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder & CEO of One97 Communications, which operates to allow opening of bank accounts
mobile wallet and e-commerce platform Paytm, wants violating KYC norms.
to be the first one to launch a payments bank. It is
scouting for a non-banking chief executive for the new
service. Sharma is targeting to start the bank by early
FY17. Planning to invest around Rs.1,200 crore over a
period of three years in the project, Paytm would not
have any equity partner in the project.
6 | 2015 | NOVEMBER | BANKING FINANCE
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