Banks planning a common portal for education loans

Students securing admission to recognised higher educational institutions will no longer have to run from pillar to post to get education loans. Banks are planning to provide them a common online platform to streamline the loan application and sanctioning process.

The Indian Banks’ Association, on behalf of banks, has engaged a third party service provider for setting up and maintaining the online platform/portal, said a senior Central Bank of India official.

Once the portal is up and running, all that a student will need to do is upload details of the admission and make an online loan application to two-three bank branches that have been mapped to each NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) recognised higher educational institution (HEI).

Since the student has secured admission to a NAAC-recognised HEI, a bank will be quick in processing his/her loan application as it knows that he/she would have approached other banks also.

So, the student has the option of availing loan from the bank which responds first to his/her application.

The official quoted above said as the common online education loan platform is visualised, the student will apply to not one but three banks at the same time for education loan.

“By simultaneously applying to three banks for the loan, the student will save time. The online education loan platform will also help banks in tracking and following-up the loan during its life cycle,” he said.

As the situation obtains now, if one bank branch declines a student’s education loan application, he has to move to another bank branch. This is a time-consuming process.

There have been cases where students have had to forfeit their admission due to the fee not being paid on time on account of delay in the sanctioning of loans.

Banks now have access to a list of about 1,100 top NAAC-rated universities/colleges institutions/technical institutions.

“The list (of NAAC-rated institutions) was provided to banks by IBA and they were asked as to which institutions they would like to get linked with. Each bank has indicated its preference. So, each of these identified institutions is now linked to at least two bank branches and students getting admission in these institutions can avail of education loans in a hassle-free manner,” said a senior Union Bank of India official.

He indicated that the platform is likely to be operationalised by mid-August.

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