By Admin 
HDFC Bank: After the sudden resignation of former chairman Atanu Chakraborty, HDFC Bank is once again in the headlines. Actually, the bank has taken strict action against 12 of its officers. He is accused of mis-selling Credit Suisse’s Additional Tier-1 (AT1) bonds.
Due to this, the bank took action against at least 12 senior and mid-level executives, stopped their increments and canceled Employee Stock Options (ESOPs). Those on whom action is being taken also include Ashish Parthasarathy, who is the group head of branch banking, payments, treasury, liability products and marketing. This latest action is a series of accountability actions taken by the bank in connection with the AT1 bond controversy.
What is the matter?
Some officers of HDFC Bank had jointly sold AT1 bonds of a foreign bank named Credit Suisse to NRIs (Indians living abroad) through their branches in Dubai and Bahrain. The matter is of the year 2023. Officials assured the customers that these bonds are safe and like FD, the money will be returned on time. Whereas the reality was something else.
Actually, these bonds are very risky and if for some reason the bank starts sinking, then the value of the bonds will also become zero and all the money invested on them will also be lost. Something like this also happened. In March 2023, Swiss authorities cut the value of Credit Suisse’s AT1 bonds to zero as part of the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. Due to this, lakhs and crores of rupees of customers who had invested in bonds were lost. The customers accused the bank officials of deceiving them and selling them risky investments.
What did the bank say?
The bank’s CEO Shashidharan Jagadeesan has given clarification on this entire matter and said that this is not a fraud, but a technical mistake in understanding the rules. Actually, through this action the bank wants to give the message that if you sell investments by giving wrong information to the customers, the bank will not leave you. In view of this action, there has been a ban on adding new customers to the Dubai branch of the bank. The salary hike of 12 officers has been stopped and their stock options have also been withdrawn from them.
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