Noted banker Aditya Puri has advised his peers to clearly separate personal friendships from banking and cited how his bank turned down a loan request from the now-fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya.
Explaining how HDFC Bank had refused loans to the ex-liquor baron Mallya, Puri said, “a banker can have a coffee with any person and then do what he wants,” stressing that it was his long time colleague Paresh Sukthankar who actually declined the loan to Mallya.
“If you are a bad risk, you are a bad risk. You can be my good friend, I can give you coffee and send you away. Just for your information, they (Mallya’s officials) came to me for a loan and I gave them coffee and told them that I will consider the loan. And then Paresh turned it down,” the HDFC Bank chief said, at a function of launching a book on the bank by journalist-writer Tamal Bandopadyay here this evening.
