UCO Bank may become the fourth lender to send a wilful defaulter notice to the debt-ridden Kingfisher Airlines.
UCO Bank CMD Arun Kaul, talking to reporters on the sidelines of a banking colloquium organised by the CII on Friday, said the government-owned lender was examining the possibility of sending a notice to KFA.
UCO Bank has an exposure of Rs 400 crore to the carrier, which has a total debt of Rs 6,500 crore from a consortium of 17 banks.
Kolkata-based United Bank of India was the first lender to declare KFA promoter Vijay Mallya and its three other directors wilful defaulters. State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank followed UBI in slapping Mallya with a wilful defaulter notice.
On reports that RBI is conducting a forensic audit on KFA, Kaul said he was yet to get any feedback from the regulator. Although SBI deputy managing director Sunil Srivastava didn?t want to comment on the next step the bank would take, he said banks have learnt their lessons. ?We have learnt our lessons. Banking is a business of risk and we go by validation of experts. Banking is also a business of trust. We have to trust the promoter, the chartered accountants and the ones who validate. Even trust is validated,? said Srivastava.
Indian Banks Association chief executive Mohan V Tanksale said, ?We have to see whether the fraud perpetrators connived with the banks.? Kaul said the banks were de-risking their balance sheets by taking a conservative approach towards lending to big projects. But not many big projects were going on at present and the choices for viable lending might emerge after six months, Canara Bank CMD RK Dubey added.
