Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to share with it information on frauds reported in gold loans, actions taken by them to recover the money and defaults in the portfolio, said people with knowledge of the matter.
The RBI also asked banks to review their lending processes to check if they are in compliance with the regulator’s gold loan guidelines. The RBI sought this information after it found that employees of two state-run banks manipulated its system to meet gold loan targets, they said.
“The RBI can access information on the Central Repository of Information on Large Credit (Crilc) for loans above ₹5 crore and Credit Information Bureau India (Cibil) for small-ticket loans,” said a senior bank official. “However, it sought information from banks to understand the nature of frauds which is not captured under Crilc and Cibil, and to sensitise lenders,” he added.
The RBI did not respond to ET’s request for comment.
“The regulator initially received a whistle-blower complaint that said employees of some banks had collaborated with friendly customers and given them collateral-free gold loans. Later, the money was credited back to the bank as repayment, creating a lien against it,” said another banker aware of the whistle-blower’s complaint.
Further, the complainant said the branch paid the processing fee from its expense account, while interest payment was avoided by manipulating the system to backdate repayments.
The RBI sent the letter to banks around the time it banned IIFL Finance (on March 4) from giving new gold loans.
Gold loans comprised one-third of IIFL Finance’s assets under management.
Similarly, the finance ministry has ordered state-run banks to review gold loan processes amid concerns that lenders are engaging in evergreening loans, as first reported by ET on March 9. It asked banks to review every gold loan account since January 1, 2022, assess the collateral value and analyse collection charges.
The concern comes amid a 17% rise in gold loans year-on-year and a 16.6% rally in the yellow metal’s prices. Loans against gold jewellery totalled Rs 1,01,934 crore as on January 26. Gold prices touched an all-time high of Rs 65,140 per 10 grams on March 5.
