PSB:All set to be lost in BANKING'S BIG BLACK HOLE
Palash Biswas
Finance minister Arun Jaitely has approved move to improve the quality of independent directors in public sector banks.
You might expect renowned financial or business experts to sit on the boards of banks, but that isn't always true in the case of state-run banks. Petrol pump owners, a Doordarshan anchor, the head of a women's club, trustees of religious boards and a clutch of small-time politicians are some of the independent directors on boards of public sector banks.Times of India reports.
Our dearest ones,the ladies,specifically,Female employees of public sector banks will soon be entitled to a major benefit of getting transfers of their choice.But it would not help PSB employees in general irrespective of gender status.Free Market economists have taken over planning commission and the business friendly government of India is all set to throw the PSBs into the black hole,which has been created by private players for all PSBs shaped in as bad loans to level PSBs non profitable and their employees inefficient to justify disinvestment and privatisation.It is only matter of time to acomplish the agenda to send all PSB employees to hell who live in ivory towers of pay scale,allowances and quota and reservation.This is it that nayak committee reccomendations are being implemented irrespectiive of PSB trade unions` stance whatsoever.The government has made major allowances for public sector employees by giving preferential treatment in transfers to women staff separated from families. It has also asked banks to reintroduce 'compassionate employees' for relatives of employees who die in service and has asked the Indian Banks Association to to include a board-approved employee home loan scheme as part of wage negotiations.
Raghuram Rajan in the beginning of August said in an interview to Zee Media, that public sector banks needed an overhaul in the way they were governed, especially in the post of the chairman-managing director (CMD). In the wake of the arrest of the Syndicate Bank chairman, he said though one need not worry about all public sector banks, but the basic framework in which the CMD works needs to be changed.
The Times of India reported today that the government split the role of the chairman and managing director of the PSU banks. It says that the chairman would be a reputed person from the industry while the managing director-CEO will run the daily functioning of the bank. The MD would have a fixed term of three years which could be extended by two more years. Rajan has said in the Zee interview that the MD would need a longer tenure to implement his vision.
There could be new norms coming in for the independent directors on the board of a bank. They could be economists, journalists, management professionals or other such experts.
Rajan had said that the PSU banks would have to focus on hiring on good mid level executives for the bank for which they would have to hike salaries of the executives. Even if the salary did not match the private banks, they would have to go up from current levels. He agreed that though PSU banks might earn lower margins than their private counterparts keeping national interest in mind for certain projects, the viability and profitability of the project would have to be considered before dolling out funds to them.
However, we welcome the development as far as it concerns our ladies working in PSBs that the Finance Ministry has asked the banks to formulate women-friendly transfer policies so that they can get transfers at places where their husbands are working or parents are living.
The Department of Financial Services, sources said, has asked Public Sector Banks (PSBs) to formulate transfer and posting polices in such way so as to minimise "hardship" of women employees.
"It has been decided to accommodate as far as possible placement/transfer of married employees, on her request, at a place where her husband is stationed or as near as possible to that place or vice versa," said a communication of the Department to head to PSBs.
In case of unmarried female employees, the banks have been asked to accommodate them "at a place where their parents" are stationed or as near as possible.
While giving directions to PSBs, the Department said it has come to its notice that female employees, both married and unmarried, "when place/transfered away from their husband or parents...To distant locations face a genuine hardship or develop a feeling of insecurity".
There are 27 PSBs, including the latest Bharatiya Mahila Bank. Of the nearly 8 lakh employees in PSBs, about 2.5 lakh are females.
The PSBs have been asked to frame the policy in this regard with the approval of their Board and "take immediate action for implementation and compliance".
Also, they have been asked to consider pending requests under the new guidelines.
SPOTLIGHT
Market Mantra
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UBS sees Nifty at 8,000 level by December end
UBS has said Nifty will scale the 8,000-mark by December even though market expectations from government remain "unrealistically" high.
Meanwhile,the finance ministry has decided to take a relook at recent appointments of top-level public sector bank executives as well as a clutch of proposals to designate chairmen just before the UPA demitted office, in what is seen as a direct fallout of the recent arrest of the Syndicate Bank chief by CBI on alleged corruption charges. as reports Times of India.
Senior finance ministry officials told TOI that a review has become necessary in view of the irregularities that have come to light.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley has written to the Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, who heads the appointment board that selects state-run bank chiefs, as well as cabinet secretary Ajit Seth, who processes all papers for the appointments committee of cabinet, sources said. Some of the appointments processed during UPA's closing days lacked transparency and there are indications that some political considerations may have played a part, they added.
In a letter to the finance ministry, CBI chief Ranjit Sinha has pointed to some irregularities that have been noticed by the investigative agency during the Syndicate Bank probe. Sources said CBI has suggested a "legal scrutiny" as it has found clues suggesting that ACRs and interviews "were managed" and some middlemen also played a role.
Sinha said Jain was appointed despite having "poor" ACRs. "We have told the government that appointments deserve to go under legal scrutiny. The government has to take a call. There are reports of irregularities in several appointments. We have informed the government about it," the CBI chief said.
For the past few years, appointment of several bank chiefs, executive directors as well as independent directors have been viewed with a degree of suspicion and have often resulted in controversy. The candidates are selected on the basis of an appraisal of the confidential reports (ACRs), which carry 70 marks, and candidates appearing for interviews for executive directors and CMDs can get another 30 marks. Apart from the RBI governor, financial services secretary, an RBI deputy governor and external experts are part of the appointments board.
Similarly, there is no clarity on what goes into deciding the allotment of banks.
Politicians, TV anchors, pump owners on boards of public sector banks
Surojit Gupta & Sidhartha, TNN | Aug 6, 2014, 02.21AM IST
NEW DELHI: You might expect renowned financial or business experts to sit on the boards of banks, but that isn't always true in the case of state-run banks. Petrol pump owners, a Doordarshan anchor, the head of a women's club, trustees of religious boards and a clutch of small-time politicians are some of the independent directors on boards of public sector banks.
The presence of this motley bunch seems to have driven the government to initiate a clean-up. "We have moved a proposal to improve the quality of independent directors. We are addressing the issue. The finance minister (Arun Jaitley) has approved in-principle the move to improve the quality. We are addressing the issue and the guidelines are expected within a month," financial services secretaryG S Sandhu told TOI.
Such a step is long overdue. Over the past few years, every bank board has seen a series of appointments of individuals who seem to have little to do with the sector. Look at any bank board, and you are likely to find a Congress party nominee as a director.
The Allahabad Bank website lists Ajay Shukla, who has experience in agriculture and runs a packaging business, as a member of the UP Pradesh Congress Committee. Anusuiya Sharma, his colleague from the state, is on the Union Bank board, while Chattisgarh PCC's Paras Chopda is a director in Oriental Bank of Commerce.
Life Insurance Corporation has Amardeep Singh Cheema, a Punjab Congressman. But it isn't just the Congress. Bhupinder Singh Suri, a former hockey player and owner of a petrol pump on Delhi's Race Course Road, was director on the board of Syndicate Bank for nearly nine years. By his own account, he landed the job on then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's recommendation. His daughter, Jasleenn, now sits on the bank board as a shareholder director after contesting an election. Industry veterans point out that there are brothers who have served on different bank boards.
Anita Karnavar is a part time independent director at Punjab and Sind Bank. She is an entrepreneur, a news reader in Doordarshan and also runs an NGO. NVR Reddy is another example of a part time director. He is on the board of Andhra Bank and is a graduate in agriculture. He has worked as a consultant and dabbles in politics as well.
Reddy said he was appointed to the post because he is from the vital farm sector. He said he gets paid Rs 10,000 for attending board meetings and airfare if the venue is away from his city.
Some directors have political links but also come with professional training.
For instance, chartered accountant Sanjay Maken, whose brother Ajay Maken was a UPA minister, sits on the Indian Bank board. Investment banker Piyush Goyal, now coal and power minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet, has served as director on the board of State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda. While the Companies Act has mandated independent directors for all companies only recently, the government has followed the practice of nominating non-official directors for years, with a majority of them being chartered accountants.
But over the years, good talent has eluded state-run bank boards. Independent directors are expected to bring in expertise from their respective fields and provide an oversight on the management.
By all accounts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not a privatiser. He prefers to make the public sector companies work better by appointing competent people to lead them. His finance minister, Arun Jaitley, too has gone on record to say that disinvestment in public sector banks will not mean reducing the government's stake below 51 percent.
Both Modi and Jaitley may have to rethink their options, especially when it comes to banking. Reason: banks need capital to grow all the time. In the case of public sector banks that are being given wider and wider mandates for financial inclusion, including lending more to non-prime borrowers, more capital is like oxygen.
This means, sooner or later, the government has to bite the bullet and let its holdings fall below 51 percent. That is, privatise banks. Both Modi and Jaitley would do well to read Yashwant Sinha's budget address of 2000-01, when he first proposed the idea.
Rajiv Lall, Executive Chairman of infrastructure lender IDFC, reckons that letting go of public sector banks may have to be done sooner than later. His argument is simple: if public sector banks have to be compliant with Basel III norms, which call for more risk capital, the government will be forced to go below 51 percent pretty soon. The PJ Nayak Committee which looked into the question said public sector banks would require Rs 3,10,000 crore of capital if they have to grow their loan books by 16 percent a year, and if 30 percent of the restructured assets (ie, rescheduled loans) go bad.
Writing in Business Standard, Lall says: "The total market capitalisation of PSU banks at today's equity prices is about Rs 4 lakh crore and the weighted average government ownership is about 62.5 percent. Raising even Rs 2 lakh crore would dilute the government's ownership share to under 42 percent."
In other words, recapitalisation needs alone will force privatisation over the next three to four years.
In a recent article on State Bank of India's own capital needs, I had argued that the SBI can raise capital by selling some of its own subsidiaries.
NDA-2 under Modi has been more cautious that NDA-1, where Yashwant Sinha, in tougher circumstances, started talking about bringing government stakes below 51 percent as early as in February 2000.
In that speech, Sinha as Finance Minister had this to say: "To meet the minimum capital adequacy norms set by RBI and to enable the banks to expand their operations, public sector banks will need more capital. With the government budget under severe strain, such capital has to be raised from the public which will result in reduction in government shareholding. To facilitate this process, government have decided to accept the recommendations of the Narasimham Committee on Banking Sector Reforms for reducing the requirement of minimum shareholding by Government in nationalised banks to 33 percent. This will be done without changing the public sector character of banks and while ensuring that fresh issue of shares is widely held by the public."
The fudge here is his claim that 33 percent ownership will not change the public sector character of banks.
The Indian budget is not in much better shape today than it was in 2000, but the challenges of a fast-growing economy are even greater now, what with the demographic bulge calling for more job creation. This needs a well-capitalised financial sector which can finance entrepreneurship.
Both Modi and Jaitley need to re-read Yashwant Sinha's 2000 budget speech even though Sinha didn't actually reduce government holdings in any bank to 33 percent.
With a government majority in place, Modi and Jaitley need to bite the bullet on privatising at least some banks over the next two-three years. They have, as Rajiv Lall suggests, no other choice.
CORPORATE Aug 7, 2014
Rajan hears Modi, says govt need not cut stake in banks below 51 percent
nor Raghuram Rajan seems to be giving Prime Minister Narendra Modi a way out where government stakes in public sector banks can be kept above 51 percent.
Modi has not been a great fan of the idea of privatisation, but the public sector banks pose a big challenge in view of their constant need for capital when government is strapped for cash. Moreover, in the context of the recent bribery allegations made against the Chairman of Syndicate Bank and the huge bad loans portfolio of public sector banks, there are apparent governance issues that need addressing.
The PJ Nayak committee report on public sector banks had suggested government stakes be brought below 51 percent, but Rajan has now said that may not (always) be necessary.
In this interview to Business Standard given soon after the credit policy was announced on 5 August, Rajan said: "To implement the PJ Nayak committee report, privatisation of public sector banks (PSBs) is not required…. There are (other) recommendations which could be implemented without bringing the stake below this. For example, appointing a bank board, putting the shares of banks in some kind of investment company structure, then manage by entities different from the government."
Rajan also said in an interview to The Economic Times that bank CEOs needed a longer tenure – perhaps at least three or five years – to deliver results. "You need managing directors for longer terms…some come for eight months and that's too short."
However, it is not clear if putting bank shareholdings in a separate structure will reduce their capital requirements in the short run.
The other day, IDFC's Executive Chairman Rajiv Lall speculated that the capital needs of public sector banks under Basel III would be so high (over Rs 3 lakh crore) that the government may have to bring its equity below 51 percent. Lall wrote in Business Standard: Lall says: "The total market capitalisation of PSU banks at today's equity prices is about Rs 4 lakh crore and the weighted average government ownership is about 62.5 percent. Raising even Rs 2 lakh crore would dilute the government's ownership share to under 42 percent."
If we take Lall's analysis, shifting public sector bank shareholdings into an investment company and professionalising management may not make a substantial immediate difference to their capital requirements. However, the structure would at least recognise the fact that governance could improve, and that government should be kept at an arm's length from bank management.
The real issue is the timeframe. If the structural change is done immediately – say by the end of this calendar year – and the new CEOs of banks are given a minimum of three years, it would ideally take them at least two years to reduce bad loans, write some off, and show results. This means their capital requirements will start falling only from 2017-18, or even the year after that.
Moreover, during the revamp, some banks – especially weak ones like United Bank of India – may need additional capital support.
This means while this year's capital requirements can be met from the market in most cases (given that average government holdings are at 62.5 percent), in the following years (2015-16 and 2016-17) either the government will have to pump in more cash or allow some banks to dilute below 51 percent.
Rajan's idea of putting some distance between professional management and politicians is nevertheless a good one – and not only for public sector banks. It should be the norm for all public sector undertakings.
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Aug 17 2014 : The Economic Times (Bangalore)
BANKING'S BIG BLACK HOLE
G Seetharaman, Shantanu Nandan Sharma & Avinash Celestine |
Why public sector banks throw good money after bad and how the vicious cycle can be stopped
For every chairman of a public sector bank (PSB) who waxes eloquent about cracking down on the dodgy universe of middlemen that exists between lenders and borrow ers, there are several in the PSB system who will tell you it's not the simplest of tasks.
Reason: in many instances, the middlemen aren't chartered accountants or non bankers but retired PSB honchos who know the ins and outs of the loans business and who often join the corporate houses whose loan cases they would have dealt with while in service. Once they're out of it, they begin canvassing for sanctions of additional limits or loans.
No banker worth his pinstripes will come on record with such examples, but in private they may just narrate to you the curious case of a retired deputy managing director at one of India's biggest PSBs who was seen carrying the briefcase of the promoter of a company he had joined on retirement. Guess where they were headed: to the headquarters of the bank he served at, of course! Or consider another retired PSB deputy MD who would park in front of a desk officer at one of the bank's zonal offices, pleading with him to process the loan proposal of the company he had joined. And then there's the tale of a chief general manager who was compulsorily retired after the Harshad Mehta stock scandal in the early '90s -he joined a sugar mill that was sanctioned credit way back in the '70s when the CGM (now retired) was head of the bank's credit division in one of its circles in the north. You would have by now guessed his post-retirement mandate: to push through proposals for enhancing his company's credit limits.
Men With Inside Knowledge "This category of ex-bankers-turned-middlemen is far more dangerous because they quite often bully their ex-subordinates and make their companies offer them allurements into clearing their proposals," says a retired banker who, mercifully, isn't playing middleman.
He adds that candidates for the top positions in PSBs shell out a hell of a lot of money to get the positions. And it is in that bid to recoup the money that they resort to gaming the system.
That may sound like an exaggeration -but perhaps less so after the second day of August when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested SK Jain, chairman and managing director of Syndicate Bank, for allegedly taking bribes to increase the credit limit of some companies. The reputation of PSBs took a further knock when reports emerged a week later of the CBI probing `900 crore loans extended by IDBI Bank to the debt-ridden and now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines when it had a negative net worth and a poor credit rating.
The Syndicate Bank case also brought the middlemen onto centre stage. Among those arrested was Pawan Bansal, MD, Altius Finserv, who is alleged to have helped companies get loans from the bank in return for bribes. The CBI also arrested 10 others, including Neeraj Singhal, vice-chairman and managing director of Bhushan Steel, who is alleged to have paid Jain `50 lakh, and Ved Prakash Agarwal, chairman and managing director of Prakash Industries, who is reported to have paid Jain `3.5 crore. Fi nance minister Arun Jaitley has said the government is probing recent appointments in PSBs in the light of Jain's arrest.
These incidents have reignited the longstanding de bate on reforms in stateowned banks which, according to some, are relics of a bygone era.
They are subject to meddling by the government and lobbying for posts and loans by vested interests and, despite their wide reach, leave a lot to be desired when compared to their private sector peers. The urgency of their overhaul cannot be overstated given that they control over three fourths the country's banking sector deposits and loans. Moreover, without a revamp, they are sure to lose their market share to private banks at an even faster rate.
Collection Concerns State-run banks have become notorious for their high share of bad loans, or nonperforming assets (NPAs, which are loans where the interest or principal has been overdue for over 90 days). PSBs' gross NPA (GNPA), as a share of total advances, has shot up from 1.84% in March 2011 to 5.07% in December 2013. Private banks, on the other hand, saw their GNPA fall from 2.29 % to 2.06% in the same period. What is even more alarming are PSBs' stressed assets, where interest or principal payment has not be made up to 90 days, which at over 12% of their total advances are three times as high as private banks'. Moreover, about 7% of PSBs' total loans were restructured in December 2013, compared to just over 2% for private banks.
What explains this marked difference?
Does the credit appraisal process of PSBs lack the requisite vigour? MD Mallya, former CMD of Bank of Baroda, does not think so: "It is robust. But what is equally important is monitor ing of loans for early warnings, which could be improved. One should not wait for a default."
According to the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), banks should watch out for `in banks should watch out for `in cipient stress' even in accounts where repayment is overdue for less than a month. Saurabh Mukherjea, CEO, in stitutional equities, Ambit Capital, believes the credit assessment skills of PSBs are on a par with private banks.
"But credit collection is a huge challenge for the PSBs. In fact, the private sector banks' aggression on this issue could be extending into murky territory," he adds.
Diwakar Gupta, exMD and chief financial officer, State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest bank, agrees with Mukherjea that col lection is a bigger worry than appraisal: "Processes have changed with core banking. You can't do the kind of relationship banking like you used to. If you decide to do a surprise check on an account, the branch manager will not even know which village the account belongs to." He adds that since most large corporate loans are given by a consortia of banks, smaller PSBs rely on the credit appraisal expertise of the likes of SBI and ICICI Bank in case of consortium lending.
Have Money, Won't Repay The RBI in 1996 did away with the rule that loans above `50 crore had to be given only through a consortium of banks, which Mallya says could have led to a slackening of discipline in PSBs. "But they have realized the importance of consortium lending, which results in exchange of information between banks," notes Mallya. VR Iyer, CMD, Bank of India, says the poor asset quality of PSBs is a result of the slowdown in the economy and infrastructure. Outside of budgetary support, commercial banks -primarily PSBs are the largest source of finance for infrastructure, which has been plagued by multiple issues in the past few years. GNPA in infrastructure rose from 3.23% in March 2011 to 8.22% in March 2014. "No one could have foreseen what happened. It has been a great learning for banks," says Iyer.
PSBs, not surprisingly, account for eight of the top 10 spots on the list of banks with the highest wilful defaults (see Bank-wise Wilful Defaults). When asked about Kotak Mahindra Bank taking the second spot, a spokesperson from the bank says that most of the wilful defaults are in NPAs acquired by the bank from other banks. "We have been in the business of bad loan recovery for the past 15 years. We believe a strong bank should be in a position to recover all kinds of loans including bad loans," he notes.
He adds that the bank does not differentiate between acquiring an NPA and a loan classified as a wilful default, since "our major consideration before purchase is based on underlying business and assets, and not on wilful defaults or normal defaults".
A loan is categorized as a `wilful default' if, among other things, the borrower does not repay despite having the ability to do so or diverts the funds for purposes other than that for which the loan was availed. Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines, which has been grounded since late 2012, reportedly owes a 17-bank consortium `7,500 crore, of which lead lender SBI's share is over `1,500 crore. The banks are said to be planning to declare the company a wilful defaulter. Prakash Mirpuri, spokesperson for Mallya's UB group, says the company will contest the move. "We have no communication or knowledge about al leged diversion of funds which we stoutly deny," he adds.
Kingfisher Gets More IDBI Bank, whose loans to Kingfish er are being probed by the CBI, ear lier this week told the stock exchanges that the airline and not the bank was under investigation. The bank's CMD MS Raghavan has stated the loan was given when the airline was doing well. But ET reported in July 2010 that despite the bank's internal reports questioning the airline's credit worthiness, the bank extended two loans in 2011 -a shortterm loan of `150 crore and another of `750 crore. The second loan was sanctioned in November 2009, according to documents submitted by Kingfisher to the corporate affairs ministry. This despite the airline having a negative net worth of `2,125 crore and cash of less than `50 crore as of March 2009.
Interestingly, a few other banks also extended fresh loans to Kingfisher after IDBI.
Yes Bank and Central Bank of India, for instance, advanced `67 crore and `350 crore, respectively, in July and October 2010, by which time the airline's negative net worth was nearly `4,000 crore; and Corporation Bank sanctioned `100 crore in March 2011. Questions sent to these banks remained unanswered.
Bank of India's Iyer says there are no norms precluding a bank from lending to a company with a negative net worth, if the bank believes the company's fortunes will turn around and the bank can get its money back. "If the branch, the risk management committee, EDs [executive directors] and the board okay it, then we are satisfied," she notes. Some in the banking fraternity argue that if a company faces a severe cash-flow problem, PSBs must come forward.
"It's the duty of a PSB to lend to a company facing a fund crunch if the company has sizeable productive assets, and there is a chance of a turnaround. No one should put the employees working there at risk," says a former CMD of a PSB who does not want his name to be drawn into the ongoing controversy.
Mukherjea believes it should be left to the discretion of the bank to decide on what basis they grant a loan after analyzing the risks. "If the regulator were to lay down norms [for this] then we would start going back to a command-and-control economy," he says. A former deputy governor questions the practice of PSBs having to seek their boards' approvals for large loans: "Where else in the world do bank boards approve loans? Even private banks in India don't have this practice.
Boards are supposed to provide a strategic direction to the bank, not approve loans."
Lending Experience
Krishnamurthy Subramanian, assistant professor at the Indian School of Business, believes PSBs' poor credit quality is a symptom of a deeper malaise which starts with the compromised boards. Save the RBI representative, appointments on the board are politically influenced, including the director representing minority investors who is from the Life Insurance Corporation, a major shareholder in many of these banks. "The umbilical cord of PSBs is very closely tied to government and they are governed by anachronistic acts like the Banks Nationalization Act (1974) and the State Bank of India Act (1955)," says Subramanian, who was on the eight-member committee appointed by the RBI to review the governance of bank boards. The committee, which submitted its report in May and was headed by PJ Nayak, former chairman and CEO of Axis Bank, called for a revamp of state-run banks.
Among its suggestions were the reduction of the government's stake in PSBs below 50% -which could help the banks raise much needed capital and make them more transparent -a minimum tenure of five years for bank chairmen, increase in compensation of top executives and elimination of oversight of agencies like CBI and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). "It [external vigilance enforcement] does not provide a level-playing field to PSBs as private banks freely operate without any oversight of these agencies notwithstanding the fact that they also deal with public money," says a former CMD of a large state-owned bank.
Talking of the Syndicate Bank case after the monetary policy review on August 5, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said: "While we do a thorough investigation and culprits are brought to book it should not become a witch hunt which then stalls the entire credit process."
Though many believe a former CMD of a government-owned bank should be held accountable in case of imprudent lending which comes to light after his term is over, there are those who find it unreasonable.
"Can anyone reconstruct the sequence of events leading to a disbursal of a loan five years ago? For example, success of a power project depends on many things including fuel supply, environmental clearances etc.
Will you hold the bank responsible for a loan which turned bad later?" asks another banker who retired as an executive director of a mid-size public sector bank.
Hawk-eyed Watch
It was the CVC -the country's apex vigilance institution -which forwarded a number of bank fraud cases to the CBI to investigate, some of which have surfaced recently.
Without going into the details of any individual case, central vigilance commissioner Pradeep Kumar says his organization sent only those cases to the CBI where it found prima facie that there could be some criminal intent.
"I do agree that there are always some risks involved in lending. But how can a bank flout basic lending norms? For example, there is a case whether the land [of the borrower] has not been securitized. Is it not a fraud if a company takes a loan by showing a number of pieces of machinery when it has just one machine," asks Kumar (see "The Socalled Power Club...", page 04).
While the issue of reforms in PSBs crops up periodically and government after government pays lip-service to it, it has to be taken up in earnest immediately before inefficiency and impropriety define these banks better than their government ownership. Till that happens, expect more bankers to cross over to the dark side after retirement.
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 | List of banks in India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  This is a partial list of corporations engaged in banking business within the territory of India. There are currently nationalised banks in India. Contents[hide]Nationalised banks / Public-sector banks
SBI and associate banks
Regional rural banks
Private-sector banks
Foreign banks operating in India
Foreign banks with business in IndiaBanks with branches in India.[4]
Foreign banks with representative offices in India
Indian banks with business outside IndiaList of subsidiaries of Indian banks abroad as on November 30, 2007:[5]
See alsoReferences
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