Even after new Board of Directors at Yes Bank, compliance failure, mis-selling of AT1 bond accused still there - Exclusive chat with Ex-Director Uttam Prakash Agarwal

It has been almost 1.5 years since new management took over in Yes Bank. The old management was replaced to bring about the change. Are all the issues related to corporate governance resolved now? In an exclusive chat with Zee Business’ Brajesh Kumar, Former Director of Yes Bank - Uttam Prakash Agarwal answers some of these very important questions.  

“The (Yes) Bank was totally driven by the management and not by its Directors. All decisions were taken by the MD in consultation with the Chairman and all information was prepared by the team of management,” Agarwal said. 

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Agarwal, who is also a Former President of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) raised several issues while he was a member of the Yes Bank Board. He had spoken about failures in the corporate governance of the company.  

All the issues related to corporate governance are in the public domain and were written to the (Reserve Bank of India) Governor, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman and ministries, he added.  

Agarwal said that people in senior management and at top posts like company secretary, legal team, risk head... all these people on whom SEBI imposed a penalty were the part of old management and are in the new management, as well.  

There were loopholes in their functioning, especially in works of “Mr Nambiar” who was from the legal department, Agarwal said. He said that “Mr Nambiar” was undisciplined, and he tried to do things against him, to toe the management line and be in their “good books”.  

Agarwal said that “Mr Nambiar” took the opinions of Judges and Chief Justice and others.  

Agarwal said that he was vocal about these things to protect interests of the shareholders and banking industry.  

He said that he made his efforts to raise those issues, being a chartered accountant and the past President of ICAI. He said that he could not have overlooked things happening in the bank. 

He said that he was of the view that the Yes Bank’s new management must remove the people from the old team if it has not done that already.  

He was responding to a question from Brajesh Kumar if the core team needs to be changed.  

Barring a few people who have left, the core team remains same and should the core team not be changed as it was responsible for the state of affairs, before the bank was taken over by new management, Kumar asked the former Yes Bank Director.       

He further said that whatever action happened on the directors must also happen on the other people.  

Brajesh Kumar also asked Agarwal if the settlement amount was being paid by the Yes Bank or if it was paid from the people in the top management. He asked if there should be more clarity on this?  

He said that the penalty must be paid by the employees from their personal accounts and it must not be paid by the bank. He said that the Yes Bank has been separately penalized.  

He said that if the organisation pays the penalty, then the people in top management will continue to work according to their wishes.  

He also said that this would, otherwise, impact the shareholders and innocent directors.  

Appealing to the regulators, he said that the management must be held equally responsible along with the board of directors.   

He said that he was not aware of the current developments in Yes Bank. He said that the bank has been working fine since Prashant Kumar has taken over.  

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डेढ़ साल में यस बैंक का बोर्ड तो बदला पर बैंक के बाकी कर्ताधर्ता कब बदलेंगे?
कंप्लायंस में फेल्योर, AT1 बॉन्ड की मिस सेलिंग के आरोपी, नियम को ताक पर रखने
वाले कब बदलेंगे? यस बैंक के पूर्व डायरेक्टर उत्तम प्रकाश अग्रवाल से खास बातचीत।@BrajeshKMZee @cauttamprakash2 pic.twitter.com/SB70wCJmqz

— Zee Business (@ZeeBusiness) September 23, 2021

Kumar has taken over as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Yes Bank. He said that he has the confidence of the public and has introduced several products which were earlier with the bank.