YES Bank Denies Concealing Bad Corporate Loans

India’s YES Bank has denied covering up data that would reveal non-performing assets (NPAs) in the bank’s corporate loan portfolio, according to Bloomberg Quint reports Thursday (Sept. 27).

“The bank has not entered into any transactions with the intent to do any window dressing of corporate accounts to conceal NPA status,” the bank said in a statement, responding to India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE). The NSE had reportedly inquired as to whether the bank had engaged in window dressing to hide bad corporate loans in an effort to inflate its stock price.

YES Bank said that, while it received a query from the NSE, it has not seen the original complaint that included the allegations of “evergreening” corporate loans. The bank added that its NPA stats are “among the finest in the Indian banking industry.” At the end of June, YES Bank reported gross NPA of 1.3 percent, and net NPA of 0.59 percent, reports said.

Reports noted that the allegations followed the Reserve Bank of India‘s (RBI) recent decision to block YES Bank‘s Managing Director and CEO Rana Kapoor from serving another three-year term, though the RBI did not elaborate on why it made that decision. Kapoor will only be allowed to stay in the position through January of next year.

The publication also noted that the NSE inquired about Kapoor’s family office, and whether its lending and investing business might “compromise the interests of the bank,” Bloomberg Quint said. The NSE reportedly also asked whether the family office is “a conduit to undue benefits for credit exposures, including real estate exposures.”

YES Bank is collaborating with the government in an initiative to boost India’s startup community. The bank announced in late-June that it is launching new financial services designed for startups, as a partnership with Kerala Startup Mission, a government-led unit to support entrepreneurship in the country.

Those services include current accounts without minimum balance requirements, as well as other services provided by third-party partners.