NRI Deposits of ICICI Bank Deactivated

Saturday, February 03, 2007

ICICI Bank has taken the extreme step
of freezing the accounts of all Non-Resident Indians who have not
submitted documents required by the bank.

Scores of documents were lost by ICICI Bank in Mumbai in
the floods that swept the city in July 2005. The documents pertained
to the savings and current accounts of demat accounts for trading
and investing, home loans and auto loans, and ICICI Direct online
trading accounts. It took ICICI Bank more than a year to identify
the customers whose papers had been lost.

Both NRIs and domestic account holders were affected, and the bank
had set January 31, 2007 as the deadline for submission of documents
for overseas Indians.

The documents of demat and loan and asset accounts from various
cities were centrally stored in Mumbai, affecting customers across
India and overseas.

In the case of deposit accounts, only Mumbai-based customers were
affected, since the bank has a regional storage facility in 25 different
locations.

Not having met the deadline set by the bank, several accounts,
as a result, have been frozen till the account holders submit their
documents. Though the bank is appreciative of the problems customers
will face, officials feel this would prompt them to submit their
documents sooner.

Related –

NRI Taxations

NRI Swagat Account by Standard Chartered

Photo: State Bank of India, Nayarambalam branch 3 by Jothishbabu, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.