Respite for customers as bank allows withdrawals at all ATMs
MUMBAI: Yes Bank Ltd on Saturday, informed its customers in a late-night tweet that they can now withdraw money using their debit cards from all automated teller machines (ATMs).
“You can now make withdrawals using your YES BANK Debit Card both at YES BANK and other bank ATMs. Thanks for your patience. @RBI @FinMinIndia,” the bank said in the tweet.
The development comes after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed the crisis-hit lender under a moratorium, and capped deposit withdrawals at ₹50,000 across all their accounts combined, till April 3.
The lender’s board was also superseded with immediate effect last Thursday.
This affected many Yes Bank customers who could not withdraw cash as net banking, ATMs and UPI payments came to a halt post the RBI announcement.
After having queued up at Yes Bank ATMs on Thursday night, many made a desperate dash for branches on March 6, but even the bank’s branches kept running out of cash causing distress to customers. Further, mutual funds have also stopped crediting funds to Yes Bank accounts to protect investors. Brokerages have also halted credits to Yes Bank accounts.
The problems at Yes Bank also impacted several fintech companies and their customers who could not avail the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment services.
Under the RBI-authored ‘Yes Bank Ltd Reconstruction Scheme, 2020’, all instruments qualifying as additional tier 1 capital (AT1), issued by Yes Bank, have been written down permanently. The authorised share capital has been altered to ₹5,000 crore.
Under conditions placed on the new investor, SBI, it is not allowed to cut its stake to below 26% before completion of three years. The state-owned bank is also not allowed to terminate any Yes Bank staff for at least a year, unless they are its key management personnel.
SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said that it will deal with Yes Bank at an arm’s length basis and there was no plan to merge the two.
He told reporters on Saturday that SBI was talking to other investors as well to bring in their equity in Yes Bank. He put the number of such investors at 23 and said those keen to invest at least 5% will come under RBI’s ‘fit and proper’ criteria.