It's a 'Yes' for 'Yes Bank'! Moratorium ends; Customers can now withdraw as much money as they want

New Delhi, March 18: In a historic stance today, India’s fourth largest private bank Yes Bank has got a second life after the Reserve Bank of India lifted the moratorium two weeks ahead of the proposed deadline of 3 April 2020. With this, customers of the troubled lender can heave a sigh of relief as the withdrawal limit on the accounts has also been lifted and normal banking operations will resume at 6 PM.

 

 

The RBI had earlier imposed moratorium on the bank in wake of rising bad loans. A withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 was also put in place to check panic cash outflow. Ahead of Yes Bank’s moratorium period end, shares closed at Rs 60.80 apiece, gaining 3.67% from the previous close on BSE. The shares had nosedived to Rs 5.55 apiece and touched 52 week low after RBI imposed moratorium on the Rana Kapoor-founded bank.

The troubled private lender seems to be in renewal mode as it received more deposits in the past few days than withdrawals, Yes Bank’s new administrator Prashant Kumar said on Tuesday. “We have done our extensive analytical study of customer behaviour, only one-third of the customers have withdrawn Rs 50,000 during the period, and in the last 4 days we have had more inflows than outflows,” he added. After the Reserve Bank of India curbed banking operations, only one-third of the customers withdrew from the bank, bringing more money to Yes Bank.

 

Eight companies including SBI, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, among others, chipped in to save the troubled bank and Yes Bank’s to be elected CEO Prashant Kumar said that Yes Bank’s reconstruction is 'historic'. In the coming days, Prashant Kumar will take over the charge of Yes Bank as the Managing Director & CEO. Meanwhile, SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar also recently said that India’s largest PSU bank will not divest a single share of the 49% stake that it has picked up in Yes Bank.