Business as usual for Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank on Tuesday: Official

Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank, which opened all its branches on Tuesday after the Reserve Bank of India appointed an administrator on Friday, saw normal business activities and there was no panic among customers, top officials in the bank said.

“There were no hitches, no panic [from customers],” an official told Business Standard on the condition of anonymity.

“Customers know that RBI action is in their interest,” the official said while adding the bank has the full support from the regulator.

On Friday, RBI superseded the board of Abhyudaya, for 12 months and appointed Satya Prakash Pathak, former Chief General Manager of State Bank of India, as “Administrator” to manage the affairs of the bank during this period. A three-member committee of advisors has also been appointed to assist the administrator. Unlike in previous cases where a bank board was superseded by RBI, the regulator did not impose any restrictions, particularly on deposit withdrawal, on Abhyudaya.

One of the Mumbai suburb branches Business Standard visited on Tuesday did not see any unusual rush. Some of the depositors, however, said they are concerned and will withdraw their deposits.

“I am worried about my money, so I am here to withdraw that. I will take the money and shift to some other bank like SBI,” Bhushan Padwal, a 23-year-old customer at the bank, said.

“I shifted to this bank because at the previous bank where I was a customer, there were a lot of restrictions. But now I am concerned about my money. I’ll preferably shift to some nationalised bank. I am withdrawing the entire amount,” another customer, Yashwardhan Rao, 38, said.

On Sunday, 21 branches of the bank were opened which did not see any unusual rush.

As of March 2020, the bank has deposits of Rs 10,838 crore and advances of Rs 6,654 crore. The bank has more than 17 lakh depositors and 109 branches, which are mainly in Maharashtra.