SBI tells officials to take selfies at pledged properties

Honing selfie skills could prove useful for bankers in this age of smart phones and smarter borrowers.

And this is not for fun but serious business, going by the instructions issued by State Bank of India to its officials who are responsible for taking stock of the security and properties hypothecated/mortgaged to it.

India’s largest bank has told its inspection officials to take a selfie at the inspection site, with or without the borrower, as an integral part of the inspection exercise and the same should be preserved along with physical documents related to the hypothecation/ mortgage.

This move comes at a time when ‘rising’ bad loans and frauds ‘have become’ a serious concern in the banking sector.

Having pictorial evidence could go part way in recovery efforts should a loan turn bad.

The pictures will be part of the dossier that the bank builds up on borrowers. They could come in handy especially for officers who are new to the inspection assignment.

Properties mortgaged in lieu of housing loans are, however, exempt from the selfie click.

By getting the officials to take selfies during their annual/ semi-annual inspection visits, the bank appears to be safeguarding its interests in sense that it will know the state of the collateral -- whether there have been any changes since the last visit and action, if any, that needs to be initiated.

Meanwhile, the SBI is setting up a centralised repository of all fixed assets / properties charged to it, wherein, pictures (not the selfies but standalone pictures) with description and walk through videos of all securities/ properties charged to it will be available.

The bank plans to make the portal available in the public domain for preview of securities by asset reconstruction companies and other interested buyers, according to the annual report.

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