PMC Bank administrator to move EoW against former management soon

The Reserve Bank of India-appointed administrator of the crisis-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank is likely to file an FIR against the former management for financial irregularities at the lender shortly, a source has said.

The FIRs will be filed at the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police.

In an alleged confession to the RBI, the bank's suspended managing director Joy Thomas had accepted giving loans to realty developer HDIL and its related entity to the tune of Rs 6,500 crore without informing all the former board members.

He also reportedly accepted not classifying loans given to the group as non-performing even when there was default on repayments for years altogether.

At a press conference held Friday, Thomas has claimed of sanctioning loans of Rs 96.5 crore to the promoter of HDIL without informing all the board members.

"The FIR will be against Thomas as he has confessed to wrongdoings," said the person in know of the matter.

PMC's exposure to HDIL group is nearly 73 per cent of its total loan book size of Rs 8,880 crore as of September 19, 2019, the source said.

As per regulations, single entity exposure limit for banks is 15 per cent of their capital fund. For group companies, the exposure limit is 20 per cent.

Thomas also allegedly wrote that the actual NPA number was 60-70 per cent as against a reported net NPA of 2.19 per cent as of March 2019, the source said.