Centrum-BharatPe, Liberty Group express interest in PMC Bank: Report

UK-based Liberty Group, a combine of Centrum group and BharatPe, and two business families from Mumbai and Hyderabad have expressed interest in buying crisis-ridden Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank.

The new owner of the lender will continue to operate it as an urban co-operative bank (UCB), Business Standard reported.

"The winner for PMC Bank will continue to run it as a UCB. Automatic conversion of the UCB license to that of a universal bank is ruled out," a source told the publication.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 18 said PMC Bank has received four Expressions of Interest (EoI), but did not specify the suitors. The banking regulator also extended the restrictions on PMC Bank by another three months till March 31, 2021.

"The bank has informed Reserve Bank that in response to EoI, four proposals have been received. These proposals will be examined by the bank with regard to their viability and feasibility taking into account the best interest of the depositors. To undertake this process, the bank would need some more time," the central bank said in a statement.

The RBI had superseded the board of PMC Bank in September 2019 after a fraud was detected.

The report also comes soon after an RBI internal working group (IWG) recently proposed that large non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs) and corporate houses should be given banking permits.