Worried customers were seen outside Yes Bank branches since RBI’s Thursday move.
Highlights
- RBI capped deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for a month
- Panicked customers queued up at the bank’s ATMs at various locations
- However, most ATM machines did not have cash
In a late-night tweet, crisis-ridden Yes Bank said that customers can “now make withdrawals” using debit cards, three days after the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) placed the private lender under a moratorium, capped deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for a month and superseded its board. Bank customers have been facing huge inconvenience since the unprecedented move by the RBI.
“You can now make withdrawals using your YES BANK Debit Card both at YES BANK and other bank ATMs. Thanks for your patience. @RBI @FinMinIndia,” the tweet read.
After RBI’s Thursday move, panicked customers were seen queuing up at the bank’s ATMs at various locations, but to no avail as most money-dispensing machines did not have cash, news agency PTI reported.
You can now make withdrawals using your YES BANK Debit Card both at YES BANK and other bank ATMs. Thanks for your patience. @RBI@FinMinIndia
— YES BANK (@YESBANK) March 7, 2020
“Internet banking is not working, even the credit card has stopped working; however, I withdrew my amount through cheque,” Lalit Kumar, a Yes Bank customer, in Delhi told PTI.
In a letter, the private lender on Friday had assured its customers that their “deposits are safe”. The letter, signed by Prashant Kumar, former CFO of State Bank of India (SBI), who has been appointed as Yes Bank’s administrator by the RBI, noted that “a solution is being worked upon” to revive the bank before the one-month period of the moratorium put in place by the central bank expires.
On Friday, the central government as a part of the a rescue plan for Yes Bank said that the SBI – the country’s largest lender by assets – will take a 49 per cent stake in the troubled private sector lender.
SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar on Saturday said that the lender is conducting due diligence on the government’s bailout plan for Yes Bank, and will get back to the RBI with comments by Monday. “There are many potential investors. After seeing the schemes, they have approached us. Anyone investor wanting to invest above 5 per cent, they would have to go through all regulatory norms of RBI,” he told reporters on Saturday.
In late-night developments, Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate after two days of questioning in an alleged bank scam. The case against Mr Kapoor is linked to the scam-hit Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) as the loans given by the bank to the company allegedly turned sour, investigators have said.
