BHUBANESWAR: The Yes Bank crisis has posed a serious trouble for depositors of many Cooperative and Gramya Banks that are sub-members of the clearing system of the private bank.The depositors of Orissa State Cooperative Bank (OSCB) are in a fix after Bank of India (BoI) stopped clearing their cheques after RBI put Yes Bank under one-month moratorium. Cheque clearances have also been stopped by several other commercial banks.
As many as 22 banks from Odisha figure in the purported list of 54 banks issued by BoI for blocking clearance of cheques. The depositors have been advised not to present any cheque or pay order for clearance. Cheques of these banks are cleared through Yes Bank Cheque Truncation System (CTS). Though RBI regulates the system for quicker cheque clearance, it has been restricted for moratorium imposed.
Huge funds of thousands of depositors of these banks are stuck due restrictions on withdrawals from Yes Bank. “I never thought that the cheque of the seven-decade old bank will be put on hold. The recent crisis involving Yes Bank has affected small traders like us. Who knows for how long the situation will continue? I would approach my bank for RTGS through online modes,” said a depositor of OSCB.
In a bid to tide over the crisis, the National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks and Credit Societies (NFCUB) has written to cooperative banks that have sub-member arrangements with Yes Bank to open sub-membership arrangement with any other commercial bank of their choice. Managing Director of OSCB Debendra Kumar Jena said not only the banks in Odisha, but in other States also have been affected due to the moratorium factor. “We are in talks with other commercial banks and exploring all avenues to find out alternative as soon as possible so that our customers will not face any difficulties. There is, however, no issues with other remittence facilities of our bank,” he said.
Since CTS is based on a cheque truncation or online image-based cheque clearing system where cheque images and magnetic ink character recognition data are captured at the collecting bank branch and transmitted electronically, Jena said it will take time to finalise and hoped that an alternative arrangement will be made in a week.