Moratorium on loans to NBFCs under discussion; expect decision today, says Indian Bank

“Since NBFCs are also lending to the same set of people that the banks are lending and this is the community that is under a lot of stress since these require the same kind of moratorium that bank borrowers have, especially in the case of pooled assets and the securitised portion assets, the moratorium should be available, she said adding that clarity would be coming today about the direct lending to the NBFCs.

Talking about work culture after merger she said, “Work culture was on top of my mind when this amalgamation was taken up and through this last six months, we have worked on it. It is perceived that Indian Bank is a very strong south oriented bank and Allahabad Bank is in the north and in the east, so there were lot of apprehensions and perception that these two would be very difficult to integrate."

"We had training sessions for both the sets of zonal managers together at Kolkata and Lucknow in Allahabad Bank’s training colleges and also in Chennai. So once people start meeting people and actually exchange views it has become very clear there are as many south Indians in Allahabad Bank, as there are people from Bihar, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan in Indian Bank. This has been the change that has been happening in the public sector banks in the last few decades. Also the mind-set is fast changing and integrating. I don’t see culture as a show stopper but we will keep on working on it because communication is very important in all this,” she said.

“We have all come together for this common goal of attending to the COVID-19 emergency. It is a shared goal for both the banks and they have been on the forefront of providing services to customers. Apart from the banks amalgamating, this COVID response has become the top priority for the bank,” she emphasized.

According to her, SMA 2 units which were in March recovery process were ffected a bit. "We could not follow up as usual and usually, the recovery in the last month is quite high because the percentage of slippages from SMA 2 to NPA is hardly 2 percent or maximum 5 percent. But this month there could be pressure on that segment because we could not follow up. So that segment is expected to go up across the banking sector. For Indian Bank I don’t think it has made too much difference,” she said.