'Real estate loans are given in the garb of retail loans, sourcing money cheap from the NHB refinance window.' 'This loophole is being plugged,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The bosses of SBI, Union Bank and Central Bank have been driving down to their offices everyday to take stock of the biggest loan drive ever undertaken for MSMEs, discovers Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Like doctors, health workers, police, bankers are also COVID warriors,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'It may sound like sacrilege, but does it really matter if the global raters downgrade India for fiscal slippage?' asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Its obsession for growth, chasing corporate clients and giving up its original mandate of meeting the needs of local trade and businesses. A quarter of its loan book has gone bad. That's an error of business strategy, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'One way of doing this could be offering credit guarantee to the banks, say 10 per cent, for fresh loans given to micro, small and medium enterprises,' observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'No one cares about fiscal deficit now. Or for that matter, inflation.' 'The focus is on growth and growth alone.' 'RBI needs to break the risk aversion of banks and infuse adrenaline in their veins', says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Common sense says if one can afford, servicing the loans during this period is a better bet than postponing it by three months,' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Mired in corruption, politics and with a history of suicides by its hapless depositors, PMC Bank's revival is a challenge very different from Yes Bank and LVB, both for the regulator and the rescuer, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Why do we need a bad bank, owned by the banks themselves when there are at least 28 ARCs around, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
If banks cannot charge interest from borrowers during the moratorium, who will bear that cost? Should the depositors subsidise the borrowers by foregoing interest on deposits? In that case, we will turn banking on its head! notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The new ceiling will cover around 93 per cent of all deposit accounts, up from 90 per cent earlier,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Under the watchful eyes of five wise men, who know the industry well, banks will not find it easy to hoodwink the system, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Probably in August. We can argue whether RBI is dovishly neutral or neutrally dovish but the telltale signs of at least one more rate cut are strewn all over the policy statement, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We may bite the bullet and draw up plans for privatisation.' 'If that is done now, the sale of the government stake will fetch money; a delay will see erosion in whatever value is left in these banks,' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We get to know secrets such as some of India's top-rated firms do not always make payments when due and many State-owned, listed, enterprises that borrow in bond markets default regularly.' 'Without naming the bank, he says that ever-greening of poor loans by a part of India's shadow banking lay at the doorstep of India's banking, notably 'one private bank'.' Viral Acharya's Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India won't be music to many ears, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'When bankers are hounded by investigative agencies for credit decisions going wrong and defaulters are treated like outcasts, who will borrow money and who will lend?' asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The Indian economy and the Indian financial sector today remain resilient and much better placed.'
Women dominate Indian banks's clerical and officer rolls, but few make it to the executive office these days, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Individual banks should break away from the industry pact and have their own settlements with the unions, recommends Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The company's transition from an individuals-driven private firm to a board-driven listed public one will be carried out in a well-thought-through and well-executed manner.'
'The no-rate cut policy and preference to wait for the Budget and clarity on the fiscal front demonstrate RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is maturing in his new role,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Fix India's real estate sector. Fix India's public sector banks, advises Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'It's a toss-up between a fire sale of equity or merger with a strong bank,' points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'As banks grapple with risk aversion and savers see an erosion in the value of money, the P2P platform can be a win-win for both borrowers and lenders,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
This is one of the many such cases that helped to create an acute fear psychosis among public sector bankers, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay in his fascinating new book Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy.
'In times of recovery, we may see a rural-urban divide with the urban pockets affected more by COVID-19, but the MFI business model should encourage banks to handhold them in this hour of crisis,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We can't have the best of both worlds -- large, efficient, world class government-owned banks, doing social banking and making profits. 'Why not set them free from the shackles of such obligations and run them as business units?' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We do not know when we will get to the business-as-usual mode.' 'Many borrowers may not be able to pay up.' 'The incidence of cheque bouncing has doubled or even trebled, some lenders say,' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Most importantly, marking a departure from the past, the RBI has made it clear that it is not overtly worried about the level of the local currency,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The RBI has not allowed any commercial bank to fail in the past three decades.' 'It has always played the role of a matchmaker, but this is the best deal it has stitched,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The snakes and ladders game will continue till the consolidation process is complete simply because we don't know how bad the scene is, with some of the banks being merged,' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'At the first board meeting I chaired, I sensed that corporate governance is an issue in this company.' 'I started taking steps that may have aggrieved a few.' 'This has now become a mission I intend to accomplish before I step down.'
None of the four benchmarks suggested by the RBI is ideal as banks in India create loan assets from their deposits and not borrowing from the regulator or market, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Woefully inadequate infrastructure is just one of the many reasons why a case is not settled within 180 days and even 270 days as envisaged by the law, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The evolving RBI-government relationship, a reversal in the interest rate cycle and return to profitability will dominate bankers' conversation this year, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
If indeed we want the board to manage the RBI, probably the government should take a close look at the US Federal Reserve system which has a two-part structure - a central authority in Washington, DC, and a decentralised network of 12 Federal Reserve Banks located throughout the country, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Spare the serious entrepreneurs but don't allow the rogues to use the shield of secrecy, writes Tamal Spare the serious entrepreneurs but don't allow the rogues to use the shield of secrecy, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
There is a dearth of talent in the Indian banking industry. A testimony to this is the two new CEOs in the private sector -- Sandeep Bakhshi in ICICI Bank Ltd and Amitabh Chaudhry in AXIS Bank Ltd -- have come from the insurance sector, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Enjoying the backing of the regulator, Gill has identified the core problems, ring-fenced the banks from "influencers" and is in the process of building a new team. Now, he needs to play a Vikram Pandit for YES Bank, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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