All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) on yesterday accused the RBI, Finance Ministry, and Central Vigilance Commission for waking up only after a major scam surfaces. They further charged them with not analysing the failure of the system.

These charges were made after the Nirav Modi Scam came to light. “What is the role of the government and its policies, which cause system failures and scams?,” the Union asked.

The release, signed by Thomas Franco, General Secretary, AIBOC, demanded that the banking industry needs better banking, better reporting, better supervision and better technology.

Criticising the demands made by Arvind Subramanian and others to privatize the Public Sector Banks, the apex trade union of supervisory cadre employees from Public Sector, Private Sector, Regional Rural Banks and Co-operative Banks, asked, is ownership uniquely determines ethics and efficiency?

The release further said, “11,643 borrowers in the country have availed 38% of the total loans given by Banking Sector as on March 2016. Just 12 NPA accounts have an outstanding of Rs.2,50,000Cr. 84% of the NPAs belong to Corporates. Every year banks are writing off thousands of crores for these corporates which are the biggest scam. FICCI and Assocham should ask the members to be honest and repay the loans instead of demanding privatisation.”

Mentioning that the SWIFT has been used for frauds from the nineties, AIBOC asked why RBI and the government did not intervene to correct the system?

“What is needed is a reversal of the Economic policies, credit policies and NPA norms and bring in transparency. Why should accounts with security be provided 100% provision for NPA in two years? Why has the present government not appointed officer Directors and Employee Directors, in the boards of the Banks, which are mandated by law? They have scant regards for the law itself,” the release mentioned.

The apex body also asked the rationale of utilising bank employees for other activities like Aadhar Linkage, Aadhar enrolment, selling pension scheme of Government. These activities are often the reasons for weakening supervisions.

As a solution to the crisis facing the Indian Banking Sector and the economy today, the AIBOC demanded:

1. Publish the names of defaulters of the Banks and ask banks to write to the Home Ministry to make an entry in the passports of the Board of Directors of these Companies “Emigration Clearance Required” so that they don’t run away like Vijay Mallya, Jatin Mehta, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.
2. Have a relook at the NPA norms. Why all accounts which have a default of 30 days be declared as NPA? Why not look at the reasons, scope for recovery, security etc?
3. Appoint Officer Directors, Employee Directors and Nominee Directors immediately and allow them to play a watchdog role. Remove RBI Executives and Finance Ministry Officials from the Boards of Banks as they are Supervisors and they can’t supervise themselves. It’s time for a wakeup call.