Rs 6,000 cr transfer, a headache for newly appointed Bank of Baroda MD and CEO PS Jayakumar?

PS Jayakumar is now the new managing director and CEO of state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB). He has to apply his expertise to find ways of quickly controlling the fallout from the probe into the transfer of Rs 6,000 crore to Hong Kong in the garb of payments toward possibly non-existent imports from a branch of the bank.

Jayakumar earlier used to work with Citibank and the management is relying on him to solve the crisis. He is one of the few such appointments that have been made as the government has sought to draw on talent outside the public sector bank pool.

He has become the CEO after the lender remained headless for 14 months during which most policy issues remained unaddressed as top executives focused on day-to-day matters.

Jayakumar is the second person from the private sector to lead a state-run bank following Rakesh Sharma, who joined Canara Bank last month as the government attempts to turn around the state-run banking system that's laden with bad debt.

As far as the probe is concerned, over 30 public and private sector banks may get dragged into it involving the transfers of money by 59 companies through newly opened current accounts at BoB's Ashok Vihar branch in New Delhi.

On Monday, BoB executive director BB Joshi said the money was mostly transferred electronically from these banks through the real-time gross settlement system or RTGS route. "Around 90% of amount has come from various banks. Only 10% cash transaction has taken place at our branch," he said.

An official said the Finance Ministry would ask banks to identify any black money trail, adding "Bank of Baroda said the actual amount is lower.”

As the probe is going on, “we will not be able to give a definite number, but it should be much less than Rs 6,000 crore," said Joshi, ruling out any financial loss for the bank. Its stock dropped 3.02% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), closing at Rs 176.80 on Monday. The bank has suspended two employees including the branch head besides terminating the services of the concurrent auditor.

"We are forwarding all money trails to the investigating agencies and it was the bank itself which detected the irregularities and proactively informed the agencies," said Joshi.

Last week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had conducted searches at 50 locations in relation to the alleged violation of banking norms. It noted that most of the addresses given by companies were either false or that they did not exist at the locations.

"Most of the accused persons allegedly involved in perpetration of the said crime have been identified and their interrogation is underway. There was allegedly overseas remittance of foreign exchange of Rs 6,000 crore," it noted in its statement.

The amount remitted in each transaction was below $100,000 and said to an advance toward imports, the CBI said, adding that in most of the cases, the beneficiary was the same.

(Image: Indiatimes)