Nowadays, almost every bank offers locker facility to its customers. Banks earn a steady cyclical income by putting their lockers on rent. There is hardly any recurring expense to be borne by banks on account of maintaining lockers. This facility entails a one-time investment for the bank and the income is permanent.
Also, it has become a practice among most of us to maintain lockers in banks. Many banks offer safe deposit locker facility to customers to deposit their personal belongings, mainly gold ornaments, cash and other important documents. The facility is provided in exchange for a particular annual charge based on size of the locker.
The customers generally feel safe while depositing their valuables in the bank locker, considering the level of security and vigil ensured by the bank. But a question arises: Is our bank locker really safe? Going by a recent RTI, the Reserve Bank of India has made it clear that banks are not liable to make good the losses to customers in case of a theft or a fire leading to disappearance or destruction of our assets in the lockers.
The applicant has moved the Competition Commission of India (CCI), alleging ‘cartrelisation’ and ‘anti-competitive practices’ by the banks in respect of the locker service. In short, your ‘safe’ deposit locker is no more ‘safe’.
In fact, the revelation has come as a shocker to many. Many people maintain lockers in banks with the fond belief that the assets stored inside are safe and in the event of a theft or a fire, the banks would hold forth in favour of customers.
The banks also do not educate customers about such hidden risks. They rather make it look like a special service that they reserve for a select group of customers. This is pure hogwash. At least, the state-owned banks owe it to public to let them know that customers are as vulnerable to loss of their assets as they are if the assets are kept in their home cupboards.
They are expected to put up placards or notices in the banks to this effect. They do not do it with a purpose. They know that once they disclose this, customers will not hire the safe deposit lockers which will result in a straight loss of revenue. In fairness, banks should not be totally responsible for the assets in the lockers as they do not get to know what the customers keep inside a locker. There are chances that a customer can make a false claim and the bank should not be held liable to make good this alleged loss.
However, the issue is not in black and white. What about a bank where the anti-fire equipment system has not been installed or the instruments installed conk out when they are expected to function.
What about the banks where there are chinks in the security apparatus or if at all there is security it is not adequate. Who will enforce the standard operating procedure (SOP) in a bank. Customers should not be made to remain at the receiving end in the event of a theft or a fire.
It is a patent cheating on the part of the banks who do not bat an eyelid while extracting charges from a customer for the smallest of small services. They do not want to compensate a customer in case of a deficiency in their services leading to a fire or a theft of a customer’s assets. Banks protect themselves under huge insurance covers, including fidelity cover. But in case a loss comes on the way of a customer, he or she is made to suffer.
The situation seems to be worsening each day. The Indian citizen saw the darkest side of banks immediately after the night of 08 November 2016. Purportedly that step was taken to eradicate a bulk of the ‘black’ or tax-unpaid money from the Indian economy.
The erroneous assumption was that all the money that was held in cash was illegal or black. Bank officials not only harassed the average citizen but also raked in neat profits for themselves during that period. Almost all employees of all Banks in India joined hands and became rich in a short span of time.
Their devotion to work long hours and day after day for a few months amazed people at their abilities. Surprisingly, the same hard working bank employees were incapable of counting the total currency notes that they exchanged after 08 November, for which the Reserve Bank of India is incapable, till date, to give exact figures of the notes received.
Slowly, when understanding dawned on the general public, the moolah had already come in. The new money, it was said, was siphoned off for the rich to swap their old currency notes. They never had to visit any bank branch during that period while the middle class and the poor had to stand in queues to withdraw their tax-paid deposited money from their own accounts.
More than 150 people died while standing in unbelievably long queues in those months after demonetisation. It was not just the long lines but the severe damage caused by that single decision has pulled India’s economy back by decades. Modi’s demonetisation was probably the first instance when the Indian citizen lost faith on all the banks of the country as dependable institutions where one could save up for bad times.
The present RBI declaration in quick succession is once again clarifying that banks, the safe deposit lockers and all your money saved in them are truly unsafe. So much progress towards a cashless economy indeed!