Chief Operating Officer / India
When a completed entry was insufficient
- Company loan portfolio
- ₹2,180 Cr
- Tavresh; March 2026, not delegated lending authority
- Operations colleagues
- 284
- Led through six managers
- Regional offices
- 42
- Four northern Indian states
Decisions & consequences
01Holding the release until the machine could be identified
A pre-disbursement review in November 2024 found that some equipment files could not connect the supplier's invoice description reliably to the field inspection record. The invoice used a model and commercial description; the inspection used a serial number or a local reference. Some differences reflected a corrected invoice or a machine substituted before delivery. The records did not establish a common explanation for every file. We held 62 proposed disbursements totalling ₹18.6 crore while the relevant evidence was reconciled.
The sales team wanted operations to accept a supplier confirmation so that the planned releases could proceed. Several borrowers had arranged their own installation schedules. I recognised the cost of delay but asked which person could verify that the confirmation concerned the inspected asset. A general statement about the order would not resolve a specific identification gap. We agreed a file-level review with the field assessors and suppliers, recording the identifier change and any effect on the approved financing conditions.
Forty-three files subsequently met the conditions to proceed through the normal release process. Nineteen went back to credit and commercial colleagues because a change or missing fact required a decision outside operations' authority. I did not treat those referrals as loan rejections or report the full ₹18.6 crore as money saved. The hold concerned proposed disbursements, and the eventual outcomes differed across the group. We also avoided calling the discrepancies fraud without evidence that supported such a conclusion.
The immediate consequence was a slower release timetable and additional field work. I took that consequence to the CEO alongside the reason for the hold. We then revised the handover record so that the invoice, inspected equipment and approved asset description could be traced together before a file reached the release queue. The change did not make every future substitution unacceptable. It made the substitution visible to the function responsible for deciding whether the financing could still proceed.
Refunding charges generated by the wrong starting event
A servicing review after the RBI's April 2024 guidance on interest charging identified a date problem in a small part of our loan population. An internal booking date had been passed into the servicing process as the interest start date, although the actual disbursement occurred later. The booking record was useful for tracking preparation but did not establish that funds had moved. We expanded the review beyond the accounts that had complained and identified 86 affected accounts.
Finance and compliance checked the actual disbursement evidence, recalculated the account position and validated ₹11.8 lakh of excess charges to be refunded. I coordinated the operational correction and customer communication. A commercial manager argued that the amounts should be adjusted quietly against later instalments to avoid drawing attention to an issue customers had not all noticed. I supported an explicit, approved correction process and a clear explanation of the adjustment. The company's record needed to acknowledge the error, not rely on the customer failing to identify it.
The validated excess charges were refunded, with execution checked against the approved account schedule. We separately changed the event used by the servicing process. Technology colleagues tested the mapping against bank evidence and included cases where preparation and disbursement fell on different dates. Finance and compliance reviewed the treatment; operations did not decide a new interest policy on its own. We retained the review trail so that the correction could be examined after the immediate task was closed.
The result reversed the identified excess charges and created additional servicing work. I did not present that as an efficiency gain. The useful decision was to repair the affected accounts and the source of the error together. A completed refund list alone would not have shown that the next loan would be handled correctly, while a repaired system field would not have restored the position of customers already charged too much.
Rejecting a custody transfer supported only by box counts
A 2025 archive move involved 6,800 closed-account files packed into 118 sealed boxes. The proposed handover record listed the number of boxes, but the file manifests for 22 of them were incomplete or inconsistent with the packing record. The lowest-cost provider was willing to accept the boxes on that basis. Our procurement team saw the move as a routine storage service and wanted to avoid reopening the commercial selection after the schedule had been agreed.
I asked what evidence would establish custody if a later request could not locate a file from one of those boxes. A signed count of containers would show that containers moved; it would not establish which records the receiving party had accepted. We retained responsibility for the 22 boxes while our team and the provider completed a joint count and corrected the manifests. The remaining 96 boxes had records adequate for their scheduled transfer. We did not classify a manifest discrepancy as a lost file before checking it.
The final custody arrangement included accepted file lists, an authorised retrieval process and a defined route for investigating a missing or disputed record. It cost ₹9 lakh more annually than the cheapest proposal. The CEO approved that additional expense after we explained the difference in service and evidence. Retention, access and disposal rules continued to come from the company's applicable policy and legal review; we did not use the move to apply an invented uniform retention period or dispose of files to make the exercise easier.
The work delayed part of the transfer and required colleagues to examine records that the original schedule assumed were ready. That was the cost of knowing what the company was handing over. I would not claim that a detailed manifest removes every custody risk. It gives both parties a more reliable starting point for fulfilling their responsibilities and makes a later retrieval problem possible to investigate without first reconstructing what should have been recorded at transfer.
Keeping a supplier refund open until the borrower record was resolved
Thirty-one equipment orders were cancelled after funds had been disbursed under the relevant financing arrangements. The expected supplier refunds totalled ₹8.4 crore. Some suppliers returned combined amounts for several orders, while others paid in parts. An operating summary initially treated a bank receipt as sufficient evidence that the associated cancellation was complete. That shortcut could leave money received by the company without a dependable account-level explanation of how it should be applied.
I brought finance, servicing and the commercial teams together around an order-to-account schedule. The schedule distinguished expected refund, bank receipt, identified allocation and completed account action. Where a supplier's reference was insufficient, a named commercial owner had to obtain clarification. Finance retained control of the accounting entries and compliance reviewed the customer treatment. Operations did not extinguish a contractual claim or decide the borrower's wider credit position simply because a payment had arrived.
At the review date ₹7.6 crore had been received against the ₹8.4 crore expected, leaving ₹80 lakh outstanding. Twenty-four account cases had completed the required reconciliation and account action. Seven remained under follow-up because amounts or evidence were still incomplete. The counts and cash totals described different aspects of the position; a partly received refund did not make an account case fully resolved. We reported both and retained the names of the executives responsible for the remaining work.
The commercial team preferred a report emphasising the high proportion of cash recovered, particularly while negotiating the remaining amounts with suppliers. I kept that progress visible but resisted closing the seven cases in the operating report. The borrower needed a correct account, and directors needed to see the unresolved obligation. The decision created continued follow-up work and a less complete-looking report. It also prevented the company's own receipt of funds from being mistaken for the completion of every customer consequence attached to those funds.