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The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) has clarified that it will separately communicate the revised date for submission of claims and the procedure to be followed in respect of payment of deposits in the case of the scam-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank.
This clarification comes even as big depositors of PMC Bank were on tenterhooks about submitting a form that requires them to declare the “willingness of depositors to receive insurance claim amount (up to ₹5 lakh) from DICGC.”
The “willingness” clause was interpreted by some of the depositors to mean that they may not receive deposits above ₹5 lakh. Hence, PMC Bank depositors, with deposits above Rs 5 lakh, were reluctant to submit the form.
Now, the Corporation has stated that in the case of PMC Bank, there may be a need to invoke the provisions of Section 18 A (7) (a) of the DICGC (Amendment) Act, 2021.
Also read: Banking venture of Centrum Financial Services christened Unity SFB
As per the aforementioned section, “the Reserve Bank finds it expedient in the interest of finalising a scheme of amalgamation of the insured bank with other banking institution or a scheme of compromise or arrangement or of reconstruction in respect of such insured bank, and communicates to the Corporation accordingly, the date on which the Corporation shall become liable to pay every depositor of such insured bank may further be extended by a period not exceeding ninety days.”
Chander Purswani, President, PMC Depositors Forum, said: ”Our fight was never for ₹5 lakh but for the entire money. We stand by that. We are confident that the RBI and the Centrum-BharatPe combine will not let us down.”
Need for a roadmap
Purswani emphasised that RBI should give a roadmap as to how and when PMC Bank depositors with deposits above ₹5 lakh will get their money back along with accrued interest.
He said PMC Bank has about one lakh depositors with deposits up to ₹5 lakh and about 43,000 depositors with deposits above ₹5 lakh.
RBI had accorded “in-principle” approval to Centrum Financial Services Ltd (CFSL), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrum Capital Ltd, on June 18, 2021, to set up a small finance bank (SFB). This approval was in specific pursuance to CFSL’s February 2021 offer in response to PMC Bank’s November 2020 Expression of Interest (EoI) notification.
Unity Small Finance Bank
CFSL has christened its proposed banking venture as Unity Small Finance Bank.
Under the “in-principle” approval, CFSL will first operationalise Unity SFB in 120 days. Thereafter, RBI will place in public domain a draft scheme of amalgamation of PMC Bank with the SFB. The last step will be government’s sanction for the scheme.
DICGC had, on September 21, 2021, asked the depositors of 21 urban co-operative banks (UCBs), including PMC Bank, Sri Gururaghavendra Sahakara Bank, Rupee Co-operative Bank and Kapol Co-Operative Bank, which are currently under the Reserve Bank of India's All-Inclusive Directions (AID), to contact their banks and submit the declaration of willingness to enable DICGC to make payments.