Yes Bank aims to ramp up growth capital, margins

YES Bank, which is in talks with investors to give an exit to the SBI-led lenders who are its majority shareholders, sees profitability improving and the resultant gain in RoI (Return on Investment) from this fiscal as the 44,000 crore tied up in the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) will begin to come back to the bank in tranches from this fiscal.

- BENN KOCHUVEEDAN

This will have ₹11,000 crore getting released, ramping up its growth capital and margins. "Having achieved the PSL target last fiscal, we'll get ₹11,000 crore released from the RIDF by November or December, shoring up our growth capital and the margins. This means we can lend more, and improve our margins, leading to increased ROI," Prashant Kumar, managing director and chief executive of the bank, told TNIE in an interaction.

As much as ₹44,000 crore are tied up in the RIDF now for not achieving the mandated PSL targets in the previous four fiscals since the bankruptcy of the bank, he said. The RIDF, set up in 1995-96 to finance rural infrastructure projects, is maintained by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

"People are comparing us with competition, completely disregarding where we started off from. There are certain legacy issues as the bank was not meeting its priority sector lending targets, as a result ₹44,000 crore of our assets are sitting in the RIDF accounts where return is 2% below the repo rate," he said.