YES Bank moratorium could be lifted within a week, says RBI-appointed administrator

• Prashant Kumar, who has been appointed as the administrator for YES Bank by the RBI, told CNBC-TV18 that the withdrawal limit could be lifted by March 15.
• He added that things could be stabilised by April 3.
• Meanwhile, State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar said that in terms of a value creation perspective, a merger with YES Bank would have been negative for SBI.

The Reserve Bank of India imposed withdrawal limit of ₹50,000 on YES Bank could be lifted as soon as in a week, say reports.

Prashant Kumar, who has been appointed as the administrator for YES Bank by the RBI, told CNBC-TV18 that the withdrawal limit could be lifted by March 15, while things could be stabilised by April 3.

Kumar said that SBI is not going to ask for extra capital from the government and that there is no connection between safety of deposits and market capitalisation.

Promoters will pay but why should entity suffer: SBI chairman

In an interview with NDTV, State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar said, “You take action against the promoter, but that doesn’t mean you close YES Bank down. There are employees, there’s a detailed franchise, there are 1200 odd branches… If the promoters have done something wrong then they will pay the price for that but why would the entity suffer?”

Talking about how the SBI is a co investor in YES Bank and why there was not a merger, Kumar said that in terms of a value creation perspective, a merger would have been negative for SBI.

When the order came in on Thursday (March 5), people hurried to transfer money in netbanking or from the YES Bank app, but both services were down from Thursday night. Serpentine queues started building up in front of YES Bank ATMs. And, even fintech companies in India took a hit.

"I think for us, the first priority is the customers and how to provide the seamless business to our customers and like you must have seen on the very first day, all our ATMs were up for the customers," Kumar said to CNBC TV18.

Even before the RBI action, the Mumbai-headquartered lender deferred announcement of its earnings for the third quarter of 2019-20 to March 14 or before.

"I think we are going to declare our results on March 14th," Kumar said.

With inputs from PTI

See Also:
The fall of Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor from a billion dollars to facing a ₹4300 crore investigation
The three Kapoor sisters who said ‘no’ to banking are now in the dock with Yes Bank crisis