PNB PUSH MISSION PARIVARTAN

PNB’s Mission Parivartan pushes for centralization of critical functions
CLPCs, SIBs and LCBs to result in greater accountability and transparency
Branches to focus on enhanced customer service and responsiveness

New Delhi, July 4, 2018: Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s largest nationalized bank, has embarked upon a credit restructuring exercise that will ensure that large accounts as well as lending operations are concentrated in a few specially designated branches. To ensure better accountability and operations the bank is shifting most of the borrowal accounts above Rs 50 crore to branches which will be designated Systemically Important Branches (SIBs). There will be over 60 such branches across the country and creation of these branches will not only mean better servicing of these accounts but will also ensure better checks and balances over large accounts. The bank is in the process of shifting most of the large accounts to SIBs.

Apart from these most of the bigger accounts will be operated from branches designated as Large Corporate Branches (LCBs) while regular branches will concentrate on regular savings accounts and CASA. For Centers located in Metropolitan Cities, in addition to LCBs/MCBs/IBBs, two to three branches are to be designated as SIBs depending upon geographical convenience.

A senior PNB official further clarified, “Contrary to false reports, PNB has no plans to close operations in branches like the Brady House branch in Mumbai. Reallocation of some of the accounts is part of the restructuring process aimed at centralization of critical functions and large corporate accounts. Retail operations for PNB customers continue to operate from the branches like Brady House.”

The bank is looking at centralised centres of excellence to execute “Mission Parivartan’ for lending operations and recovery too. After the creation of a stressed asset vertical in June to focus on recovery of stressed assets and NPA’s the bank has launched the first Central Loan Processing Centre (CLPC) in Connaught Place to work as independent support and work outlet that enable qualitative credit assessment, segregate Pre- and Post-sanction responsibility, shorten turn-around-time and facilitate efficient monitoring. This will mean that Credit Operations will now be moved to specialized loan processing centers. PNB has proposed to establish Centralized Loan Processing Centers, pan-India in a phased manner for processing of Loans above Rs. 50.00 lakhs across all key cities.

Under this the pre-sanction and the post sanction processes will be segregated and handled by different teams to ensure transparency and better scrutiny of lending.

These changes form part of the recommendations by the bank’s independent think tank named ‘Mission Parivartan’ that has pushed for centralization of critical functions. This transformation is aligned to the Government of India’s Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE) program that emphasises clean corporate lending through rigorous due diligence and appraisal for sanction. The bank has initiated various steps like the creation of Central Loan Processing Centres (CLPCs) apart from aggregation of corporate accounts having limit of Rs. 50.00 crore and above in LCBs/MCBs/SIBs. This shall help application of more rigorous and skilled processes as envisaged under EASE and allow the branches to focus on marketing along with enhanced customer service and responsiveness.

Author: sarkarimirror