Bhubaneswar: Managing director and chief executive officer of UCO Bank, Atul Kumar Goel Thursday claimed that the bank did not violate KYC norms but it was just an ignorance that took place in Varanasi branch.
Goel was here in city to attend State Level Bankers Committee Odisha (SLBC) meeting. Answering to questions frm media person Goel said, “We are not violating any KYC norm. That was only one account and that happened due to ignorance. It was basically a transaction issue. Otherwise nothing happened.”
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) fined UCO Bank Rs 50 lakh for not complying with the Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and rules for opening current accounts. RBI had stated that the penalty was imposed for non-compliance with certain provisions of directions issued by it on know your customer norms or anti-money laundering standards and opening of current accounts.
In a bid to come out from the burden of non-performing assets (NPAs), UCO Bank CEO has planned to recover Rs 8,000 crore in current financial year to achieve profit.
“We aim to recover around Rs 2,000 crore every quarter of this current fiscal. Two-three big NPA accounts will be recovered of an amount of Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,500 core by September quarter of this financial year,” Goel said.
According to him, UCO Bank has referred around 183 NPA accounts with a total exposure of Rs 25,096 crore to the NCLT. Of this, 109 accounts with total amount of Rs 15,865 crore were admitted in the tribunal, while 72 accounts with a total amount of Rs 8,226 crore were not admitted and the remaining two accounts were sold to Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs).
With this recovery, the bank hoped to bring down the NPA percentage to below 6 per cent. At present, Banks’ net NPA is 9.72 per cent.
The bank has drastically increased its profit in last several quarters. According to the UCO Bank MD, the operating profit of the bank has increased to Rs 118 crore in March 2018 financial year and Rs 690 crore in March 2019 financial year. “The profit has increased 500 per cent in March 2019 compare to march 2018 fiscal. We have also registered 81 per cent growth from December 2018 to March 2019 quarters,” he said.
The bank has given priorities to the MSME, agriculture and home loans under the current disbarment strategy. Goel clearly stated that the bank will not lend any amount to Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF) category in this fiscal.
Bank’s advances for last year were Rs 1.19 lakh and deposits Rs 1.98 lakh. The bank made growth 15 per cent in advances and 70 per cent in deposits.
