Acquisition of Accommodation on Lease/Rental basis by Commercial Banks for their use (i.e. for Office and Residence of Staff) – Liberalization of guidelines

RBI/2014–15/582 DBR.No.BAPD.BC.92/22.01.003/2014–15

April 30, 2015

Please refer to Cir­cu­lars DBOD.No.BL.BC.105/22.01.03/98 dat­ed Novem­ber 11, 1998, DBOD.No.BL.BC.32/22.01.003/ 2008-09 dat­ed August 21, 2008 and DBOD. No.BAPD.BC.59/22.01.003/2012–13 dat­ed Novem­ber 20, 2012 on the above subject.

2. In terms of these cir­cu­lars banks were advised to lay down and for­mu­late detailed oper­a­tional guide­lines cov­er­ing all areas in respect of acqui­si­tion of premis­es. These norms and pro­ce­dures for acqui­si­tion of accom­mo­da­tion on lease / rental basis by com­mer­cial banks for their own use have been in oper­a­tion for a num­ber of years. Since then branch autho­riza­tion has been lib­er­al­ized and Domes­tic Sched­uled Com­mer­cial Banks (exclud­ing RRBs) have been giv­en gen­er­al per­mis­sion to open branch­es at any place in India, with­out seek­ing pri­or approval of RBI in each case, sub­ject to cer­tain con­di­tions in terms of cir­cu­lar Nos.DBOD.BAPD.BC.54 /22.01.001/2013–14 dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 19, 2013 and DBOD.BAPD.BC. 60/22.01.001/2013–14 dat­ed Octo­ber 21, 2013. In keep­ing with the cur­rent lib­er­al­ized envi­ron­ment with regard to open­ing of branch­es, it has been decid­ed to do away with the peri­od­ic state­ments on dis­put­ed premis­es to the Region­al Direc­tors of RBI or to Depart­ment of Bank­ing Reg­u­la­tion, Cen­tral Office.

3. In view of the above, it is reit­er­at­ed and banks are advised that norms and pro­ce­dures for acqui­si­tion of accom­mo­da­tion on lease / rental basis by com­mer­cial banks for their use are left to be deter­mined by the banks them­selves. Banks must ensure that their branch­es are not func­tion­ing from premis­es unau­tho­rized in law. Fur­ther, banks are advised that the legit­i­mate griev­ances of own­ers of prop­er­ty leased to the bank should be exam­ined at appro­pri­ate­ly senior lev­el in the bank and expe­di­tious action should be tak­en to redress such grievances.

4. All oth­er instruc­tions remain unchanged.

Yours faith­ful­ly,

(Lily Vadera)
Chief Gen­er­al Manager