Good news for PMC customers, this joint venture will invest Rs 1,800 crore

A joint venture between Centrum Group and digital payment services provider startup company BharatPe will infuse Rs 1,800 crore in Maharashtra’s troubled cooperative bank Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank. A top official of Centrum has given information about this plan. Jaspal Bindra, executive chairman of Centrum Group, said that we have set aside a capital of Rs 1,800 for the small finance bank. It will eventually be deployed in PMC Bank. He said that out of this, Rs 900 crore would be given through joint venture in the first year itself. Both the partners will make an equal share of it. The rest of the capital will be invested later.

RBI has given in-principle permission to Centrum Financial Services, a subsidiary of Financial Services Group, to start a small finance bank. The proposed bank will be created exclusively to take over PMC. Centrum Financial Services had proposed to set up a bank for this specific purpose on February 1, 2021.
How much money is stuck with the depositors

The Reserve Bank said that the company had submitted this proposal with reference to the information published by PMC Bank inviting Expressions of Interest for the acquisition of PMC Bank. PMC Bank is working under the administration of Reserve Bank since September 2019. More than Rs 10,723 crore of depositors’ money is still stuck in this bank. Similarly, a total of Rs 6,500 crore loans of the bank are stuck in recovery which have been declared as NPAs. For the acquisition of PMC, Centrum Group has registered a joint venture company with Gurugram-based BharatPe named Resilient Innovations. Both have an equal share in this. Under the existing rules, the proposed small finance bank will be operated by Centrum Group. Bindra said that what happens next for PSC Bank’s huge NPAs and losses will depend on the conditions imposed by the government with regard to the merger of this bank with the proposed small loan bank.