Bank lockers have been an essential part of India’s banking ecosystem for decades. They serve as a secure space for storing valuables ranging from documents to gold and jewellery. India is the second largest consumer of gold in the world, with 22,000 – 25,000 tons of gold in private Indian households, which is 12% of the world’s gold ever mined.
In a country where the cultural significance of assets like gold is deeply ingrained and personal, the demand for bank lockers remains consistently high. While lockers are the usually trusted spaces for the safekeep of many assets, the availability, security and privacy concerns of these lockers need more understanding.
“The safety and security of bank lockers have become points of concern, primarily due to the persistence of age-old infrastructure and security protocols when methods of theft have evolved. There have been multiple cases where bank lockers were compromised,” said Suraj HS, Co-founder at Aurm, an assets protection firm which partners with banks to provide state-of-the-art automated safe deposit locker facilities.
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According to reports, Rs 180 crore was lost in 2,632 incidents of robbery, theft, and burglary across 51 banks between 2014 and 2017. In 2017-18 alone, 972 such incidents were recorded – roughly three per day – as per RBI data. Locker thefts make up a significant and growing proportion of these crimes, ranging between 20% and 40% of total thefts annually. Sometimes this was found to be a case of collusion between bank employees and maintenance staff, and in other cases, it involved exploiting technological loopholes. As recently as last week, a service manager of SBI in Mumbai was arrested for stealing gold jewellery worth Rs 3 crore from the bank lockers.
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Security infrastructure for bank lockers are largely legacy systems, which are often inadequate and have not kept up with sophisticated techniques of planned theft.
“Banks usually have a CCTV camera with a recording feature, but it isn’t intended to be proactive to prevent theft. The camera recordings can be analyzed post-facto after the robbery has been committed, but they are not set up to provide active surveillance and alerts if there is an intrusion attempt. In addition, the armed guard stationed at the bank lockers is not available during non-bank working hours, when the incidences of theft are most likely. The UCO Bank locker theft incident over an extended bank closure of 3 days and 4 nights in 2018 and the subsequent investigation highlights this issue clearly,” informed Suraj.
In most cases of locker theft, customers have had to bear the brunt of the financial losses, since banks have not adequately insured the lockers, and have been lax in taking steps to compensate victims. Add the emotional distress of losing one’s inherited wealth and connection to one’s lineage, and one can understand the trauma that theft victims have to go through.
In addition to theft, natural disasters play a role in loss of valuables as well. The geographical diversity of India makes certain areas more vulnerable to natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes and cyclones that affect the bank premises, and cause heavy loss of contents stored in these lockers.
According to the new RBI rules, effective 1st January 2024, the liability of a bank towards a loss faced by the user due to the bank’s negligence will be up to 100 times the prevailing annual locker rent, excluding any damage or loss due to natural calamities or any act that is attributable to the sole fault or negligence of the customer.
The challenges of availing lockers are not just logistical, but also extend into regulatory grey areas of systemic inefficiencies, and a lack of standardized practices across banks. The inconsistent implementation of RBI regulatory guidelines, ambiguities in liability clauses and insurance coverage for locker contents continue to stand as unresolved anxieties while using lockers.
With inadequate security protocols, lack of consumer education about their rights, responsibilities, and nuances in using a locker, weak redressal mechanisms and vague liability clauses, there are many gaps and loopholes that locker users will likely face. Considering all these aspects, the way a locker facility is set up and operated in the present context might not be the “safe space” for the storage of one’s generational wealth and valuable assets that it is perceived to be.
Therefore, “the current infrastructure available for safe deposit storage needs an urgent upgrade to keep abreast of modern methods of theft and intrusion. Having a robust, automated storage, authentication, and access mechanism with hacker-proof technology for customers to store and access their lockers safely can minimize incidents of thefts,” said Suraj.
