Oriental Bank of Commerce, which acquired Global Trust Bank last year, has filed 30 first information reports against GTB defaulters to recover Rs 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion) of bad loans.
Of the 30 FIRs, Central Bureau of Investigation has registered 10 cases, OBC chairman and managing director K N Prithviraj told media persons after inaugurating a retail outlet of the bank in west Delhi.
FIRs will make the defaulters come to the negotiating table, he said, adding the bank is interested in recovering the money, while law enforcement agencies will look into the legal aspects of the case.
OBC took a hit of about Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion) in losses incurred by GTB.
The losses are expected to be wiped out in five years, Prithviraj said, adding GTB is expected to chip in Rs 14,000 crore (Rs 140 billion) of Rs 1,00,000 crore (Rs 1000 billion) of OBC's business this fiscal.
Even after acquiring GTB, OBC's net non-performance assets stood at just one per cent, he said.
The bank has so far recovered Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) of bad loans of GTB and all bad loans are not irrecoverable as good number of them is backed by immovable properties, the OBC CMD said.
After OBC took over GTB last year, its capital adequacy ratio fell to nine per cent from 14 per cent, Prithviraj said, adding the ratio again rose to 12 per cent after the bank raised Rs 1,450 crore (Rs 14.5 billion) through IPO in May.
The OBC CMD said almost all issues relating to the merger of GTB are resolved, including salary structure of erstwhile GTB employees.
Only the issue of outsourcing of work by GTB remains to be resolved, he said. GTB had outsourced some of its work, employing people at as low as Rs 3,000 per month.
"Either we will have to get rid of this outsourcing or have to find some other way. The scheme of amalgamation did not include these employees," he informed.
Prithviraj said besides getting a foothold in south, OBC has acquired skilled IT workforce and 30,000 demat accounts from the merger of GTB.
About 110 branches of GTB would be integrated with central banking solution of OBC by October and ATMs of the two banks were already in sync with each other, Prithviraj said.
