The move is aimed at making settlement of claims or return of articles from a locker smooth for relatives after the death of a customer.
The Reserve Bank of India is planning to standardise the procedure for settlement of claims with regard to deposit accounts, and articles kept in safe deposit lockers of deceased bank customers, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said during his monetary policy outcome speech.
The move is aimed at making settlement of claims or return of articles from a locker smooth for relatives after the death of a customer.
"We will be standardising the procedure for settlement of claims in respect of bank accounts, and articles kept in safe custody or safe deposit lockers of deceased bank customers. This is expected to make settlement more convenient and simpler," Malhotra said.
As the procedures vary from bank to bank, they need to adopt a simplified procedure to facilitate hassle-free settlement of claims made by survivors or nominees or legal heirs.
'With a view to enhance customer service standards, it has been decided to streamline the procedures and standardise the documentation to be submitted to the banks,' the RBI said.
Bankers suggested that a centralised policy for unclaimed deposits of deceased customers would help in making the procedure simpler against the different practices of banks now.
Additionally, banks should focus on automation (the amount should be directly transferred to the nominee's account) and reducing manual reliance to cut the turnaround time.
Bankers pointed out that quite often nominees do not have accounts in the same bank as of the deceased person, leading to delay in the process.
Hence, they suggested a proper integration within banks to make the process easier for the nominee.
"Sometimes what happens is the nominee's surname does not match with the deceased person or the nominee may have a different surname in the PAN card and the Aadhaar card, which hinders the process to a large extent.
"So, it should be clearly defined what documents are required and proper integration among banks is needed. This would ensure that the amount can be transferred from the account of the nominee," said a senior official with Bank of Baroda.
Additionally, banks may plan to develop a portal similar to UDGAM, RBI's Web site for unclaimed deposits.
The UDGAM portal helps individuals and legal heirs to search for unclaimed deposits across multiple banks in India.
It helps people to locate and recover unutilised funds held in bank accounts.
In case a nominee/legal heir is missing, banks should actively reach out to the family of the deceased within a set timeline as decided in a centralised policy, said bankers.
"If the timeline is fixed for settlement, it can speed up the process and also reduce the burden.
"For instance, the timeline may say that from the day of death of the customer until 15 days or a month, banks have to reach out to the family of the deceased and ask them to claim the deposits.
"Also, municipal corporations should cooperate with banks in providing death certificates and other details," said a senior official at Bank of Maharashtra.
The RBI said that a draft circular in this regard will be issued shortly for public consultation.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff
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