Banks to seek passport details of loan holders of Rs 50 crore before April 30

New Delhi: Loan holders, for all existing loans of over Rs 50 crore, will have to submit their passport details to the banks, as per Zee Media sources. Passport details will help banks to take timely action and inform the relevant authorities to prevent fraudsters from fleeing the country.
Sources said that the passport details of such loan holders will have to be submitted before April 30. In case of companies, the directors will provide their passport details and in case of individual borrower, the details of the individual passport holder has to be given.
In the case of consortium loans, the lead bankers will seek details of the passport of the loan holder. Sources have also said that the details of the passport may also be linked to Core Banking Solution (CBS). Such linkages will help in sending prompt alert in case of a fraud.
In absence of passport details, banks were hamstrung in taking timely action to prevent defaulters especially wilful one from fleeing the country.
Several big defaulters like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya and Jatin Mehta have fled the country putting the recovery mechanism in quandary.
It may be recalled that as part of drive to clean the banking system, the Finance Ministry last month had directed public sector banks (PSBs) to probe all NPA accounts of over Rs 50 crore for possible fraud and accordingly report the cases to CBI.
Besides, the ministry had asked banks to monitor loans above Rs 250 crore and red flags whenever the original covenants of the loans are violated. This was spelt out as part of 6-point-reform measures announced for PSBs in January.