Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has barred the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank Ltd, Mumbai from carrying out a majority of its routine business transactions for a period of six months, here on Tuesday, sparking panic among the banks depositors and sending shock-waves in city banking and business circles.
The apex bank’s Chief General Manager Yogesh Dayal said that as per the RBI directions, depositors cannot withdraw more than Rs.1000 of the total balance in their savings/current/other deposit accounts.
Described as a multi-state cooperative banking entity, the PMC Bank has branches in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Founded in 1984 in a small room in Mumbai, it has now grown to a network of 137 branches in six states and ranks among the top 10 cooperative banks in the country.
The PMC Bank has been barred from granting, renewing and loans and advances, make any investments, incur any liability including borrowal of funds, or accept fresh deposits, etc, without the prior written approval from RBI.
The RBI has also restricted the bank from disbursing, agreeing to disburse any payment whether in discharge of its liabilities and obligations or otherwise, enter into any compromise or arrangements and sell, transfer or otherwise dispose off any of its properites or assets except as notified in the RBI notification of yesterday.
In a statement today, the PMC Bank’s Managing Director Joy Thomas said the bank had been put under regulatory restrictions by the RBI owing to irregularities disclosed to the apex bank.
“As the MD of the Bank, I take the full responsibility and assure all the depositors that these irregularities will be rectified before the expiry of six months,” Thomas told the banks’ thousands of distressed customers.
He said that it was a difficult time for all but urged the peoples’ cooperation to overcome them by standing together strongly.
Meanwhile, thousands of weeping depositors rushed to the PMC Bank’s head office in Bhandup, north-east Mumbai and its branches in different parts of Mumbai to make withdrawals even as police were deployed around the branches to avert any untoward incidents.
