Bankers Are Doing Non-Banking Jobs

AIBEA has given a call for all bank employees to observe strike on September 2 , 2015 to protest against proposed modification / amendments in labour laws to the detriment of bank employees and to favour employers.

AIBEA has further requested Government to declare Loan to Kingfisher as wilful default so that bankers can recover the money from defaulter like Vijya Mallya. This makes it clear that despite several efforts made by many banks, bank officials failed to convince the borrower and the court that the default is wilful. Not only Vijya Malya, there are hundreds of such big defaulters , who are not repaying the dues to banks despite the fact that they have capacity to repay in time, but bankers are unable to consider the default as wilful default.

It is just enough to prove that not only bankers have acted with negligence in lending to high profile borrowers  in greed of some favour and  some material gain but also  Indian laws and Rules framed by RBI are proved to be ridiculous and ineffective. It is painful that banks are needed to prove the default as wilful to recover the loan given to a borrower. After all,  default is default. Courts and tribunals are unable to decide bank cases filed against defaulters in years and decades. It is Himalayan task for bankers to prove in court that they have given loan  to defaulter, that documents are genuinely executed by defaulters only and that amount of default is correctly calculated.

Government of India do not hesitate in building  pressure on banks to lend money to big infrastructure project, big corporate, high value business houses, Power generating companies or power distributing companies or even to farmers,  small traders and small industrialists.

But when it is the issue  of recovery of overdues from defaulters, Government of India do not extend any support to bank officials , rather bank officers are advised to be tactful and effective. When default occurs, blame is pointed towards nature, or global situation or domestic economic slowdown.

GOI fail to make laws or is unwilling to make laws effective so that money is recovered from all types of defaulters without the need of proving various points, like whether the default is wilful or not, like advance made was adequate or inadequate, documents executed by defaulters are time-barred or within limitation, whether proper notice has been served to defaulters or not, whether proper formalities for creation of mortgage of properties was created or not, whether any property not under mortgage can be seized or not,  interest rate was low or high and so on.

Government of India is not willing to build pressure on courts and various tribunals like Debt Recovery Tribunals to decide the bank cases pertaining to recovery from defaulting borrowers in timeframe and fix accountability on judges and magistrates who in collusion with borrowers and in nexus with advocates go on delaying decisions on bank cases on flimsy grounds for years and decades.

It is very much painful and ridiculous too that Banks are forced to give loan to a person or a company in a timeframe of few days or few months but borrowers , loan takers are not forced to repay the loan on demand or face stern punishment and judiciary is not forced to decided the case in a fixed timeframe of few months or a year or two and courts are not forced to decide the case in fixed timeframe. I am unable to understand why does it takes years and decades to prove that loan has been given , that default has occurred and that defaulters have to repay the dues.

Banks are required to give loan to farmers, students, business men, professionals   or industrialists without any trouble to loan seekers , but when loan takers fail to repay the loan in time willingly or unwillingly, then bank need to prove it from various angle that bank has truely given loan or default is wilful . It means needle of doubt is always pointed out towards bankers and not against borrowers who have wilfully defaulted in repayment of loan in time with a malicious intention to get it written off or to settle the loan under compromise with huge discount. 

The root cause of accumulation of stressed assets in public sector bank is neither global recession or economic recession as claimed by clever bankers and clever politicians. Reasons for rise in stressed assets starts from the first day of loan sanction to days of  monitoring, day of default and finally  days when recovery processes are initiated till it is parked in courts for final ordeal. Quality of sanctioning of loan, quality of monitoring, quality of legal system , quality of politics, quality of governance, quality of workforce who handle such cases  all need to be questioned and made effective .

The key reason is that bank officials in public sector banks are to sanction loans under pressure from some corner or the other or under pressure of achieving the target. If loan growth is not achieved , the career and personal life of bank officers may be affected badly. There is no protection to bank officers who are shouldering the task of loan sanctioning and loan processing. Loan processing officers and loan sanctioning officers may face threat to their life and their family or may face critical and frequent transfers or rejection in promotion. In such position , some officers become extraordinary clever and they start earning money from unfair means by giving loan to those who bribe them better. In this way they kill not only two birds but many birds with one stone. They achieve the target given by management and earn money from evil ways, they get appreciation in all meetings, they get quicker promotion, cash incentives not only from borrowers but also from bank management for achieving the target  and finally get cream posting.

Bankers are meant to do banking activities , but they are forced to indulge in non-banking activities which adversely affects the quality of lending , quality of monitoring and quality of ownership for assets created by bank. Bank officers act as machine which work as directed by machine owner. They do not have love for banks but love for higher bosses who can make or mar their life and career. The culture in government banks is to pass the time somehow or the other and leave the evil work behind for followers. There is complete lack of ownership and loyalty. Quality is not significant , quantity is important.

Second reason is political exploitation of banks by politicians and local muscle men. Safety of bank officers depends on the mercy of God. In naxal areas , bank officers do not have courage to say 'no' to any loan seeker or even reduce the amount of  loan sanction compared to what is demanded by local goondas and muscle men  directly or indirectly for others.

Third reason is position of bank officers become pathetic when loan turns bad . When loanee do not repay the loan, bank officers can do nothing other than worshiping defaulters as if defaulters is God. It takes years and decades for bankers to prove in courts that they have really given loan to defaulting borrowers and they have calculated interest correctly or the documents executed by defaulters are genuine and with Limitation act provisions.

Government , either state or central , is unable to pressurise their officials in various departments to clear the project in timeframe and penalise who wilfully delay the process of statutory clearances. GOI is unable to provide land, coal ,power and other inputs for timely completion of projects promoted by various business houses. It is known to all that project valued Rs.400000 crore in steel sector are pending and languishing in various offices for decision for years and finally when cost escalates , promoters surrenders which finally resulting in converting standard asset to Non Performing assets.

Similarly power generating companies and distributing companies have been financed thousands of crores of rupees by various public sector banks and most of them are defaulters because they are unable to recover even the cost from consumers of power to political reasons. Politicians do not want to increase rate to give comfort to voters but when these power companies book loss and default in repayment of bank loan, Government blame banks for failing to recover the dues .

Finally , even if it is proved and it is known to all that loan sanctioned to such defaulters was with ill-motivation and with negligence there is none to penalise such bad officials. Rather corrupt officers are awarded in various ways. As such there is no fear of action in the minds of any bank officer even if the loan given by them become Non Performing Asset. Officers in bank or elsewhere pass time somehow or the other and get retired leaving behind stressed assets in amounting to crores of rupees. Officers and ED and CMDs  of bank sanction loan lavishly and after two to three years transferred to other branches or other banks and none is held responsible for lapses because all of them are birds of same feather. This is why ownership for assets crated by bank loan is not developed in bank officials of government bank as it is inculcated , promoted and crated for each asset in private banks.

AIBEA to publish revised list of bank loan defaults-Business Standard- 10th July 2015
The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) on Thursday said it would release the revised list of loan defaulters during the winter session of parliament.

The AIBEA will also hold nationwide demonstrations on July 20 demanding Vijay Mallya, the promoter of Kingfisher Airlines, as a wilful defaulter and recovery the dues by confiscating his properties.

"Bad loans in the banks are increasing month after month. It is more than Rs.3 lakh crore today. This is in addition to more than Rs.3 lakh crore of bad loans re-structured and shown as good loan," general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam said in a statement issued in Gujarat's Rajkot.

According to him, huge bad loans are sold to asset reconstruction companies at a cheap rate.
"AIBEA will be publishing the latest list of big loan defaulters during the monsoon session of the Parliament. AIBEA is demanding the Government and RBI to publish the list periodically and take stringent action on the defaulters," he said.

According to the statement, AIBEA has given a call to all bank employees in all the banks to observe nationwide strike on September 2 to protest against the proposed amendments to the labour laws to the detriment of the workers and to favour the capitalists and employers.

More than five lakh bank employees and officers of public sector banks, private banks, foreign banks, Regional Rural Banks and co-operative bank will join the strike.

Stressed assets: RBI mulls stricter norms

Feels banks often opt for refinancing rather than resolving the problem, specially with lack of agreement between lenders

Concerned over banks’ reluctance to resolve accounts that are showing signs of stress, and instead resorting to ‘ever greening’,  the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is mulling stringent norms for loans that are frequently falling in the category 2 of special mention accounts (SMA 2). Loans are classified as SMA 2 when it becomes overdue for more than 60 days.

The regulator had asked banks to form a joint lenders forum (JLF) for accounts facing stress and emphasised on their resolution. However, in a majority of such cases, the consortium members are unable to agree on corrective action. To implement one, 60 per cent of the lenders in numbers and 75 per cent in value should agree.

As a result, some large lenders are resorting to refinancing for the borrower, which enables the latter to meet immediate payment obligations; the problem is deferred. In bankers’ parlance, the practice is known as evergreening of loans.

According to sources, the central bank could introduce  higher provisioning, among other measures, for accounts which frequently slip to SMA-2.

Read more in following link

Link Business Standard

FM Arun Jaitley to bailout power sector from bad loans-IIFL

Power Sector has been a major concern in India, due to decline in fiscal health of State Electricity Boards (SEBs). To rescue them from this bad loan condition, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is planning to revamp the sector by releasing the projects that have been stuck due to major need of funds and opening a new restructuring window to the SEBs.

SEBs has resulted outstanding debt of more than  Rs 3 lakh crore  and has assembled loss of of Rs 2.5 lakh crore.

A meeting is expected to take place between ministry, power sector representatives, bankers, RBI officials and other government departments, to discuss in the matter of power sector and to come up with an effective measure to aid the projects.

This action is an effort to push the investment cycle to move again. However, the government also is in terror state that this delay in projects would cause banks subjection into non-performing assets (NPAs).

In the regions of North India such as Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, SEBs and Discoms have stated an outstanding loans of about Rs 1,57,634 crore, with an accumulated losses worth Rs 1,43,715 crore, making it highest among all regions.

Sectors such as mining, iron and steel, textiles, infrastructure and aviation, are the five-sub sectors which contributes around 24.8 per cent of the total advances of banks, had a much larger share of 51.1 per cent in the total stressed advances.

If the macroeconomic condition gets more worse it could lead th ebad debt ratio upto 5.9 per cent, which would make it very suffocating for banks to overcome the losses. In order to tackle the debt, banks should not just be attached to the minimum regulatory requirements, but actively manage their capital. 

http://www.indiainfoline.com/article/news-top-story/fm-arun-jaitley-to-bailout-power-sector-from-bad-loans-115070900479_1.html

Bank staff assn mounts pressure on Centre to freeze Mallya’s assets-Hindu Business Line

July 9:  

The All-India Bank Employees Association is planning to hold demonstrations across the country on July 20 to pressure the Centre to confiscate the assets of Vijay Mallya, founder of failed Kingfisher Airlines, who is said to be the largest bank loan defaulter in the country.

The demonstrators will ask the government to declare Mallya a wilful defaulter so that his assets could be legally confiscated.

AIBEA General Secretary CH Venkatachalam pointed out that bad loans in the country’s banking system had risen to more than ₹3 trillion and was galloping every month. This was apart from the bad loans of over ₹3 trillion that had already been re-structured and shown in account books as good loans. A large number of bad loans are being sold to private asset reconstruction companies at cheap prices too. The association was planning to make public the latest list of big loan defaulters during the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament. It has urged the government and the RBI to regularly publish the list of defaulters. It has sought wilful default of bank loans to be made a criminal offence.

AIBEA has decided to go on an all-India one-day strike on September 2 to ‘protest the proposed amendments to the labour laws’, which will harm workers’ interests and benefit the corporates. Venkatachalam said 50 lakh staff in public, private, cooperative, gramin and foreign banks will go on strike.

The association would also launch a nationwide campaign on July 19 against ongoing banking reform measures. It plans to get signatures of one crore people on a petition to be presented to the Prime Minister. The petition will urge the Prime Minister not to okay privatisation of public sector banks and will also seek to strengthenithe public sector banks.