Debar defaulting promoters from bidding: Axis CEO

Axis Bank chief Shikha Sharma has called for creating a better credit culture for long-term benefits and opined that one way to achieve that is to debar defaulting promoters from bidding for their assets during insolvency proceedings.

With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) doing away with all the past dispensations to resolve the bad loan problem, and voting for initiation of insolvency proceedings against erring borrowers, there is a need to strengthen the National Company Law Tribunals (NCLTs), she said.

"Certainly a lot more cases are going to go to the NCLT; so it is important that their capacity is expanded so that they can deal with all cases," the managing director and chief executive of the third largest private sector lender told PTI in an interview recently.

Sharma said there is "some conversation" on this aspect has been taken place and added the RBI would have kept such a requirement in mind already.

She said the promoters of companies against whom banks have initiated insolvency proceedings should be kept out of the bidding process for the same assets for the long-term benefit of improving credit culture.

A short-term goal for banks would be to look at maximising the value from the assets which are being put up for bidding and that can happen by allowing the promoters to bid for the assets, while from a longerterm perspective getting the right credit culture where every borrower repays is more important, she said.

"I believe in the long-term as opposed to the short-term. You can take some pains in the short-term as long as the right things are happening in the long-term," Sharma said.