Saving YES Bank

The government and the RBI have stepped in with a community bailout for the beleaguered private sector bank to prevent a financial contagion. But it’s a long, bumpy road to recovery.

- RAJIV BHUVA AND SOURAV MAJUMDAR

Reinvent or Perish

Executives in the media and entertainment industry know what awaits their businesses if they are out of step with digital trends, but what beats them most is a lack of clarity in where to begin.

EVEN AS THE Coronavi-rus contagion rages around the world, there was another contagion threatening to build up in India’s financial sector over the past few months. YES Bank, the country’s fifth-largest private sector banking entity (with assets of ₹2,90,985 crore) co-founded by flamboyant banker Rana Kapoor, was teetering on the edge of collapse.

Several attempts by the then managing director and chief executive officer Ravneet Gill to bring in funds from new investors failed as mounting nonperforming assets (NPAs) threatened to derail the bank. This contagion, if left unchecked, would have led to another IL&FS-like disaster, only with even greater impact.

But finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das stepped in. On March 5, the finance ministry announced a moratorium on the bank, capping withdrawals at ₹50,000 a month (on the eve of the day when withdrawals were banned, deposits had fallen to ₹1,37,506 crore—a 17% drop in just over two months). The board was dissolved and an administrator, former State Bank of India (SBI) deputy managing director and chief financial officer Prashant Kumar, was appointed (he has since been renamed as the MD & CEO of YES Bank).