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Journalism of Courage
In a major relief to customers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday extended the deadline for banks to complete the process of renewal of agreements for existing safe deposit lockers/safe custody article facilities in a phased manner till December 31, 2023, from an earlier deadline of January 1, 2023.
The RBI has also asked the Indian Banks Association (IBA) to review the model locker agreement and send it to banks by February 28, 2023.
The RBI has advised banks to facilitate execution of the fresh/supplementary stamped agreements by taking measures such as arranging stamp papers, franking, electronic execution of agreements and e-stamping, among others. Lenders will provide a copy of the executed agreement to customers.
In August 2021, the RBI, in a circular, directed banks to renew these agreements by January 1, 2023. However, in a recent review, the RBI found that a large number of customers were unable to renew locker agreements and were having difficulties in executing the same.
In many cases, banks did not inform customers about the need to renew locker agreements before January 1, 2023. The deadline has also been extended as the RBI was of the opinion that the model agreement drafted by the IBA needs a revision to fully comply with the revised instructions issued in August 2021.
In the absence of the execution of revised locker agreements by January 1, 2023, a few banks had frozen locker operations of some customers. RBI has asked banks to lift the restrictions on such lockers on an immediate basis.
