The Reserve Bank of India-appointed Administrator of YES Bank, Prashant Kumar, expects the moratorium on the lender to be lifted by Saturday and equity investments to be finalised even before that.

As part of these efforts, the RBI is also likely to open a temporary special liquidity window for the bank.

Kumar is also optimistic that the bank will be back on a strong growth track in the next two quarters.

“The first priority would be normalising the situation as there has been a lot of inconvenience to customers due to the restrictions imposed by the moratorium. Everybody — the government, the regulator and State Bank of India — is working together to ensure how fast that can be done. We are expecting it may happen as early as this weekend,” he told BusinessLine .

Kumar was appointed by the RBI as the Administrator of the troubled private sector bank last week, when it put the lender under a moratorium and capped withdrawals at ₹50,000 per depositor until April 3.

Kumar said it is likely to get temporary liquidity support from the RBI and State Bank of India.

“We are having complete support from the RBI and the SBI. That is not a cause of worry. They will provide us a special liquidity window. We are assessing what is required and are in talks with the RBI,” he said.

Investor interest high

Simultaneously, talks are also on to bring on board more equity investors in YES Bank and Kumar said there is a lot of interest amongst investors. He is hopeful that YES Bank will be able to meet the equity requirement in the current week.

“First, there is commitment from SBI for 49 per cent. That will not be enough,” he said, adding that there is a lot of investor interest after SBI came into the picture.

“If we are able to resolve such a huge problem within a week’s time we have not seen any resolution happening in such a short time, that will show that the government and the RBI are absolutely behind us by taking the support of SBI,” he said.

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