CEIB launches portal for antecedent verification of prospective borrowers

The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) on Friday launched a portal for antecedent verification of prospective borrowers and bad loans to streamline intelligence clearance process for banks for loan disbursement.

The portal was launched earlier this week by CEIB Director General Amit Mohan Govil and SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara in a meeting with all public sector banks in Mumbai.

It aims at equipping banks with quick access to information for taking timely decisions with regard to credit sanction, Indian Banks' Association said in a statement.

As per 'Framework for timely detection, reporting, investigation etc. relating to large value bank frauds' dated May 13, 2015 and November 6, 2019 issued by the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, all Public Sector Banks (PSBs) seeks report from CEIB before the sanction of loan exceeding Rs 50 crore and above in case of new borrowers and if the existing borrower's accounts turn into a NPA.

In August-2022, at the request of IBA, CEIB devised a uniform format for seeking reports and also advised all the PSBs to appoint nodal officers as a designated Single Point of Contact (SPOC) to communicate with banks, the statement said.

Banks, on their part, have since appointed nodal officers and the list of nodal officers has been shared by IBA with CEIB and a dedicated email id was created to communicate with lenders, it said.

For the digitalization part, CEIB in collaboration with SBI now has developed a digital platform that would help all public sector banks to obtain mandatory intelligence clearance from the agency in a prompt manner, which will facilitate timely disbursement of funds.

CEIB was set up in 1985. It is the nodal agency for economic intelligence mandated to ensure effective interaction and coordination among all the concerned agencies in the area of economic offences.

It also functions as the clearing house of all economic intelligence and provides a platform for such exchange between various agencies within the Department of Revenue and other intelligence and enforcement agencies including IB, RAW, CBI etc.