Analyzing Punjab National Bank Scam Ashutosh Kolte* Assistant Professor, Department of Management Sciences, (PUMBA), Savitribai Phule Pune University
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© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) Analyzing Punjab National Bank Scam Ashutosh Kolte* Assistant Professor, Department of Management Sciences, (PUMBA), Savitribai Phule Pune University Paresh Wagh Tata AIG General insurance Company, Pune. Abstract: The Punjab National Bank (PNB) lost $1.77 billion in Nirav Modi case. The magnitude of the scam is very huge. This puts serious questions regarding how the scam took place either due to combination of external &internal processes or some other reasons, the technicalities behind the scam related to SWIFT, CBS, auditing etc. and the extent of scam impact as whole have been found out in this paper. The RBI is facing questions from the public regarding why it did not able to detect the banking scam during the auditing. The causes of this big scam with technical base and the scam impact have been found out. Now, this is the time where all Public Sector Banks (PSBs) should learn from such types of happenings. In this paper, the identification of the scam & its analysis is carried out. This paper also focuses on the failure of the audit and internal processes and practices that caused the scam. Keywords: PNB Scam; Nirav Modi; Banking Scam; India; Nationalized Banks; RBI Regulations. 1. Introduction World credit market had adverse impact due to financial crisis which caused Lehman brothers and other financial institutions go bankrupt with huge credit crunch. (Mathiason, 2008) (Sanches, 2014). The recession was huge and was the one, which created history. Right after this recession only, the credit system got hampered. It had harsh impact on global economy where Indian Banking sector was also included. On Feb 14th2018, the Punjab National Bank which was the second largest Public sector banks reportedto stock exchanges, Central Bureau of Investigation and Reserve Bank of India regarding exceptional transactions of approximate value$1.77 billion tending to be fraudulent (Bandopadhyay, 2018). The other PSBs were also in bad condition during that period. This bank fraud added in the anxiety level. 11 banks out of 21 listed banks came under RBI’s eagle eye view due to their condition of severe condition of capital, assets return and loans. During the government planning of bank capital infusion, the scam at PNB stood like a huge demon (Raghavan, 2018). Through this paper, our aim would be of comprehensive analysis of the PNB scam. Through this analysis, we will see various internal as well as external factors causing this scam. The technical concepts related to scam will be analyzed and the reasons behind the conversion to scam will be found out. JETIR1907386 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 585 © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) 2. Focused Literature Review: Indian banking system has already been hampered with growth in NPAs (Assocham, 2014) (Saraswat & Srivastava, 2018) Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, K.C. Chakrabarty noted in his speech that according to the number of frauds, private & foreign banks are at the top, but according to amount of money lost, public sector banks are the top rankers. (Chakrabarty, 2013) RBI further, for classification of frauds chose 2 parameters- types, provisions of the Indian penal code and reporting guidelines set by RBI. For monitoring & preventive action for the banks internal process as well as audit, a circular was issued by RBI (RBI, 2015) to the banks to set up a committee to plan preventive action with the implementation of that action. The 2008 recession had severe impact on banking system globally but at that time depositors were not rushing to withdraw deposits. In this PNB case, exactly opposite was happening. The committee under the chairmanship of P.J. Nayak reported the findings that contain the asset quality stress and marginal capitalization faced by PSBs and suggested necessary recommendations. The autonomy was given to PSB was more as compared to the earlier in raising funds from the market as well as good governance practices were also recommended by RBI. (Nayak, 2014) Before these decisions, the apex bank had strict regulations regarding fund raising, but further it made changes in the regulations and kept itself strict on the working principles of banks. Basic principles (Gandhi, 2014)in preventing fraud, there is need to know customer, partners & the most important employees as fault of PNB employees only caused this mishap. He also found out the importance of appraisal mechanism but at the same time concurrent monitoring. The credibility of senior manager needs to be the point of focus. The accurate track of the activities done by each employee of the bank. The accountability of the senior managers should be on high priority of the scrutiny. (Pandya, 2018) Lack of scrutiny, auditing, regular checking the transactions were some of the major reasons behind this fraud. (Dora, Hanumantu, & Worlikar) The individual depositor has trust because of which he deposits money in the bank. Keeping the same thing in mind bank must have transparency towards its work. The fraud happening hampers the trust of the common man and only some big businessman enjoy by having loans & guarantees. (Verma & Ravi) Loose strategies, improper risk management practices, fraudulent practices led to this crisis. We would like to find out answers to following questions: i. How the PNB scam took place? ii. Why one of the banking processes (issuing LOU) got converted to scam? iii. What was the impact of scam? JETIR1907386 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 586 © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) 3. Analysis of Data & Discussion PNB filed the complaint on 29th Jan 2018 with CBI telling the fraudulent transaction with Nirav Modi’s firm along-with related bank official.Further, on 04th Feb 2018, CBI issued lookout notice against Nirav Modi. PNB informed stock exchanges on 05th Feb 2018 regarding the fraud and its magnitudewhich is $ 1.77 billion on 14th Feb 2018. (Gayathri & Mangaiyarkarasi, 2018)The fraudulent transactions were “for the benefit of a few select account holders” The note had not mentioned the name of the Fugitive Diamond merchant but media found out the name and the place which was the Mumbai branch of PNB where the branch had allegedly issued LOUs for raising the buyer’s credit for this diamond trader (Bandopadhyay, 2018) The fraudulent transactions or LOU issuance had been taken place at Mid Corporate Branch Brady House, Mumbai. (Krishna, 2018) (PTI, 2019) 3.1 PNB scam: PNB employees (54 officials) issued the fake Letter of Undertakings (LOU) which could lead to fund NOSTRO account of PNB by the Axis and Allahabad bank (Hongkong branches). Where this NOSTRO account of PNB could fund to overseas parties including that of Nirav Modi. (Roy , Kalra, & Rocha, 2018) The two employees of PNB directly used SWIFT and while doing it, they did not pay attention on the core banking system (CBS).The FIR contained the details like those two PNB employees were issuing LOUs in unauthorized way from last 7 years. Afterwards, one of them retired and the new employee came on his designation. In January, when the officials of firm demanded fresh LOUs from PNB, the new PNB officer asked for the collateral security. The officials of firm mentioned that this had been never askedby the PNB manager in the last 7 years. Now the bank got signal that something wrong has been taken place.The new Bank officer got doubt on the past 7 years LOU issuance and he looked into the concerned matter in detail. After detail investigation, it found near about 100 LOUs issued to these firms without asking for collateral security. PNB became the victim of the fraud. It faced the problem amounting to about 11,400 crores. The PNB reported to the RBI and CBI. Modi needed money to import pearls & diamonds. He wanted to have foreign currency loan and his earning through exporting was in foreign currency. The most important thing is that he wanted to borrow without his loan account. Hence, he arranged LOU from the PNB to get cheap buyer’s credit in foreign currency, which is for a short term. Ideally, Modi should have exported the pearls, diamonds & use the earnings for settling the due amount of LOU as & when demanded by the bank according to its standard procedure. Further, PNB need to have paid back the loan it has raised in its NOSTRO account from the overseas banks. But he utilized the money for other purposes without paying it to the bank. These activities were happening from last 7 years. Rather Modi used to pay back the principal & interest on old LOU by new one. The total LoUs taken by Nirav Modi & Mehul Choksi stood out at 293 according investigating agencies detail. In this way the cycle of fraud was repeating. Mr. Gopalnath Shetty, who was been working at foreign exchange department of the PNB branch in Mumbai since 31 March 2010, and his colleagues were allegedly using SWIFT system and no other JETIR1907386 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 587 © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) Employees had attention on it. There was no linkage of SWIFT to CORE system. (Bandopadhyay, 2018) According to the FIR, SWIFT messages were issued to Allahabad bank and Axis Bank in Hongkong. (Krishna, 2018) Nirav Modi was a diamond jewelry designer. According to Forbes, his rank was 57th among the billionaire list of 2017. He was the Founder of chain of diamond jewelry retail stores.