Mumbai: Altico Captial and Dubai’s Mashreq Bank have approached the Reserve Bank of India, accusing HDFC Bank of violating regulatory provisions by debiting part of the funds the company had raised through external commercial borrowing (ECB) and parked at the Indian bank.HDFC Bank, which also had lent money to Altico, debited about Rs 200 crore from its account by using a general lien, two people with the direct knowledge of the matter told ET. Altico and Mashreq claimed that the money was transferred from the Rs 650 crore ECB that the non-banking finance company had availed of from the Dubai-based lender and kept at HDFC Bank, they said.Altico had early last month said it defaulted on an interest payment to Mashreq Bank. More than a week prior to that, India Ratings had downgraded the NBFC to A+ from AA-, citing challenges in its focus sector of real estate, following which HDFC Bank debited the amount. He didn’t name the private sector bank.Altico is backed by foreign investors including Clearwater Capital, Abu Dhabi Investment Council and Varde Partners. The NBFC got into trouble in September after it failed to pay Rs 19.97 crore in interest on a loan obtained from Mashreq Bank despite having sufficient funds.Around mid-September, India Ratings and CARE cut Altico’s creditworthiness to the ‘junk’ category.

Source: Economic Times October 11, 2019 17:03 UTC