The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted prompt corrective action (PCA) restrictions from state-owned UCO Bank, the Reserve Bank of India said on Wednesday.
The bank had been placed under PCA since May 2017.
“The performance of the UCO Bank, currently under the Prompt Corrective Action Framework (PCAF) of RBI, was reviewed by the Board for Financial Supervision. It was noted that as per its published results for the year ended March 31, 2021, the bank is not in breach of the PCA parameters,” the central bank said in a release.
Following UCO Bank’s exit, two banks — Indian Overseas Bank and Central Bank of India — remain under PCA. The central bank uses PCA framework to rein in banks that have breached certain regulatory thresholds in bad loans and capital adequacy. PCA entails curbs on high-risk lending, setting aside more money on provisions and restrictions on management salary.
As on 31 March, UCO Bank’s net NPA ratio stood at 3.94%, down 151 basis points (bps) from the same period last year. Its total capital adequacy ratio under Basel III was at 13.74%, up 204 bps from Q4 of FY20.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said on 6 August that it has been taking banks out of the restrictive framework based on assessments.
“We keep on reviewing that position. Recently, we removed one public sector bank from the PCA tag. And as and when required requests are received, we analyse it, if it meets RBI’s regulatory requirements and if in our assessment, we feel confident that it’s a fit case, the RBI will do the needful. So, we have been taking banks out of PCA,” said Das.
The PCA framework was introduced in December 2002 as a structured early intervention mechanism along the lines of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s (FDIC) PCA framework. These regulations were later revised in April 2017. In a speech on 12 October 2018, then RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya had defended the revised PCA norms, calling it the required medicine to prevent further haemorrhaging of bank balance sheets. He had added that in spite of their worse capitalization and stressed assets ratio compared to other banks, PCA banks had credit growth that was as strong as that of other banks up until 2014.
