The branches of PMC Bank have started functioning as branches of Unity SFB from 25 January. Actually, PMB Bank has been merged with Unity SFB (Unity Small Finance Bank). Unity SFB is owned by a consortium of Centrum Group and Bharatpe. Jaspal Bindra, Chairman, Centrum Group says that our first priority is to regain the trust of the customers of PMC Bank. He said that our emphasis will be on running Unity SFB on a strong technology based model.
Bindra said the new management would try to provide liquidity to PMC’s depositors, if required. He also said that the dispute related to BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover will not affect our partnership. Due to this controversy, Grover has gone on leave till March 31. Asked why he acquired PMC Bank, Bindra said, “We were of the view that we should have a bank licence. So we decided to take over PMC Bank.
On restoring the confidence of the depositors of PMC Bank, Bindra said that the confidence of about 10 depositors has been hit. We will try to restore it. First of all it would be fair to say that we are Unity SFB, which is a separate Institution. Therefore, the depositors of PMC Bank should understand that now they have no relation with the old institution. They are now part of an institution that has a substantial capital base.
Bindra said that Rs 1,100 crore has been invested in Unity SFB. Another Rs 1,900 crore investment is going to happen soon. So it is a completely different institution as far as capital is concerned. We have got an A rating. Our ratings will improve further as things get better going forward. Our partner also has a lot of capital. We also plan to offer financial incentives to our customers. We are offering 200 basis points more interest on savings account than other banks.
The head of Centrum Group also said that we would like to inform the customers of PMC Bank that they are getting PMC like facility from day one as we have retained the entire team of PMC with us. As far as the product is concerned, we will give better experience to the customers than PMC. For this we will use technology. For us, growth is more important than size. Growth will be our mantra in the first phase. We want to make all our services and products available on the app. We have a national presence since day one, which was not there with PMC Bank. They were limited to a limited geographical area.
The PMC Bank scam came to light in 2019. The Reserve Bank of India had found that PMC Bank had given loans to some companies ignoring the rules. This loan was sunk, but PMC Bank tried to hide it. RBI had banned the services of this bank. Due to this a large number of customers of this bank had to face difficulties.
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