39 per cent customers have availed loan moratorium scheme, will pass on benefits by Nov 5: PNB CEO

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New Delhi [India], November 3 (ANI): Around 38.92 per cent customers of Punjab National Bank have availed the moratorium scheme announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), bank’s Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SS Mallikarjuna Rao said on Tuesday.
Rao, speaking over a video conference meeting with reporters, said the benefits of the scheme, as announced by the government, will be passed on to the customers by November 5.
The Union Ministry of Finance had approved a scheme to provide relief in interest compounding to borrowers for the six-month loan moratorium period extended in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This will come in form of the grant of ex-gratia payment of the difference between compound interest and simple interest for six months period from March 1 to August 31.
This came after the Supreme Court directed the Central government to implement the interest waiver on loans of up to Rs 2 crore as soon as possible observing that it is not fair on the government’s part to delay the implementation of its decision.
Borrowers in the segments — MSME loans, education loans, housing loans, consumer durable loans, credit card dues, automobile loans, personal loans to professionals and consumption loans — who have loan accounts having sanctioned limits and outstanding amount not exceeding Rs 2 crore as on February 29, 2020, will be eligible under the scheme.
Meanwhile, the PNB CEO further said a growth in home and auto loans has been witnessed in the recent days.
“During September we have seen 9.77 per cent growth in home loans. Mostly growth is coming from Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities.
Mr Rao assured that the bank will not raise its service charges as recently done by some banks. “We will not raise our service charges for customers,” Rao said.
With effect from November 1, some private and public banks are levying Rs 40 to Rs 50 on deposit and withdrawals beyond a limit of three deposits a month from the savings bank account of customers in the metro and urban areas.
Separately, senior citizens, pensioners and savings bank customers based in rural/semi-urban regions will also have to shell out Rs 40 per transaction post their three-free deposits in a month. Some of the banks are charging its customers for deposit and withdrawal of money on bank holidays and non-business hours.
Further, Rao also said PNB had, “restructured retail and MSME loans worth Rs 41 crore as of September and has pending requests to restructure more retail loans worth Rs 32 crore. 15 big corporates has applied for restructuring of loan worth Rs 220 crore. We are expecting 2-3 per cent of our loan portfolio will go in restructuring.”
He further said the public sector banks are expecting a restructuring of loans worth around Rs 4,000-6,000 crore across MSMEs by the end of December.
Speaking about the recoveries made in the first half of the financial year, Rao said, “We have recovered Rs 3,000 crore in the first half of the financial year 2020-21. We expect another Rs 5,000 crore recovery in the H2 FY21. Another Rs 8,000 crore recovery is expected from cases, which are pending in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).”
The PNB reported a 22 per cent jump in standalone net profit, amounting to Rs 621 crore, for the July-September quarter. The standalone net profit for the corresponding period in the previous year was Rs 507 crore.
The interest earned during the quarter rose 58 per cent to Rs 20,946 crore as against Rs 13,292 crore in September 2019.
The bank’s total income during July-September rose to Rs 23,438.56 crore as against Rs 15,556.61 crore one year ago. (ANI)

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