PNB fraud: UCO Bank says has $411.82 mn outstanding exposure

Kolkata: State-run UCO Bank on Saturday said it has an outstanding exposure of about $411.82 million in the $1.8 billion fraud detected in public sector Punjab National Bank (PNB) and that it was confident of receiving the payment.

PNB, the second largest public sector bank in India, had detected the $1.8 billion fraud in one of its branches in Mumbai and UCO Bank was among the banks that were said to have offered credit based on letters of credit issued by the PNB.

"The outstanding exposure involved in the transactions is approximately $411.82 million and the bank is fully confident to receive the payment from the PNB," UCO Bank said in a regulatory filing.

The lender said in the normal course of trade business, its Hong Kong branch has been negotiating export documents against letters of credit issued through authenticated SWIFT message by Punjab National Bank.

The applicants for these letters of credit includes few of corporate clients associated with the incident of recent fraud happened in PNB, the lender said. 

In the fraud incident, Union Bank of India and Allahabad Bank have outstanding exposure of about $300 million and $366.87 million respectively.