Over time, the hustle and bustle of RBI and Bank locker rules have been an ongoing process. The safety of customers’ lockers was being hampered as there were cases of thefts from bank lockers. Considering the seriousness of safety, RBI stepped up and made big changes to bank locker rules.
These rules came into effect on January 1, 2022, but not everyone is aware of these new bank locker rules. Having awareness of these rules is crucial if you wish to open a locker in any bank or if you are an existing bank locker holder. Let’s recall these, new bank locker rules for 2022:
Compensation to be provided by a bank for theft
Theft from bank lockers has become a common practice and to diminish this practice, RBI has stepped up with strict rules. These rules have increased the burden of responsibility on the banks. As per these new bank rules, if anything gets stolen from your bank locker, the bank will be held responsible and will have to compensate the customer 100 times the rent of the locker. With this increased responsibility, banks will now not be able to say that they are not responsible for bank locker thefts!
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Necessity for CCTV
Now the banks must get CCTV installed in the locker rooms to monitor the thefts. Not only this, banks have been informed of the necessity to keep the data of CCTV for 180 days. This is required to check if any discrepancies occur.
Lastly, banks have also been informed to keep a record of the CCTV footage, in case a customer has complained of any theft or disturbance to the bank. This footage will be kept by the bank until the police investigation is completed.
Email & sms alerts are mandatory to be sent
Another big change that the Reserve Bank of India has made mandatory is for the banks to send SMS and e-mails every time a customer accesses their bank locker. This step will prevent fraud and protect the customers too!
Notification about empty lockers will have to be made public
This is a rather interesting change, under this the banks will no longer be allowed to give half or false information regarding their lockers to the customers. Few things will be publicly declared by the bank like the list of empty lockers, the waiting list for the lockers, and the numbers on the waiting list. This will be not only made public but also will be put on the display board of the bank.
Lastly, as per the new bank locker rules, banks will now have to accept all the applications that are related to the opening of the lockers. Thus, they will also inform the customers regarding the waiting list.
