Horror stories about debt recovery agents may finally be coming to an end. RBI has framed draft guidelines for lending banks in order to restrict intimidation by their agents.
Once the guidelines are in place, a due diligence of agents will be mandatory Banks will have to give borrowers enough notice for repayment, and supply them with the recovery agents' details. The agents won't call at odd hours, or send goons after borrowers. They won't abuse you verbally or physically, violate your privacy, or humiliate you publicly Banks will have a grievance-redressal system.
DEBT RECOVERY AGENTS WON'T
- Call borrowers at odd hours of day or night
- Employ goons to recover debts
- Violate borrowers' privacy
- Intimidate or abuse borrowers physically or verbally.
- Humiliate borrowors publicly
RBI was spurred into action by a spate of harassment complaints, even suicides, by borrowers. Prakash Sarvankar of Andheri, Mumbai, committed suicide on September 17 following harassment by a recovery agent.
"Banks are responsible for their agents' actions. They must ensure that agents strictly adhere to the guidelines," RBI said.
The banking regulator asked the Indian Banks' Association and Indian Institute of Banking and Finance to formulate a certificate course for sales, marketing and recovery agents with a minimum 100 hours' training. "The certificate programme will ensure a better debt recovery process," said Kamleshwar Rao of Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Source: HT, 01-12-07
