The Syndicate Bank has created a separate vertical comprising around 1,200 of its existing staffers to recover its non-performing assets (NPAs) amounting to around Rs 27,000 crore, said officials here on Tuesday.

The ‘Stressed Asset Management (SAM)’ vertical would comprise legal as well as credit experts who would help branch managers to device plans to recover dues from NPAs, including large corporates, said executive director of the PSU bank, Ajay K Khurana.

He told reporters that out of Rs 27,000 crore which have been declared as NPAs, the share of large corporates is around Rs 14,000 crore. “We had recently launched SAM vertical having a dedicated team of 1,200 of our employees, who will only focus on the recovery of our NPAs.

Among these 1,200 staffers, around 100 have been given the task to deal only with NPAs of over Rs 5 crore,” Khurana told reporters here.

He added that the team members of SAM have been given training regarding the functioning of National Company Law Tribunal(NCLT) and various aspects of insolvency, and will be deployed in all the regions depending on the number of NPA accounts.

The senior official also said the PSU bank is now focusing more on giving loans to MSME and retail sector rather than large corporates. “It is true that even MSMEs turn NPAs. But, this sector is also crucial for our economy. We all have seen what is the scenario of large corporates. Thus, we are focusing more on MSME and retail along with agricultural loans,” Khurana said.

He added that Syndicate Bank aims to give loans worth Rs 10,000 crore to MSMEs during the next two months. “In coming months, Syndicate Bank is planning to introduce a system of giving in-principle approval for MSME loans up to Rs 5 crore within just 15 minutes” he said.

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