EMIs etc: Housing fin firms, banks offer help

Housing finance firms and banks are going out of their way to accommodate depositors of the now-defunct Global Trust Bank in their hour of need.

GTB had nine lakh depositors. Many of them made automatic monthly payments towards home, car and personal loans. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) moratorium has effectively halted these transactions.

Housing finance institutions officials said they would accept delay in payments and even go to the extent of not presenting cheques of depositors holding accounts in GTB.

Dividend payments will continue to be automatically deposited into respective deposit holder's accounts with Global Trust Bank (GTB) unless individuals inform the respective companies otherwise.

The RBI is not in a position to put any stop payment on automatic credits to individual accounts through the electronic clearing system (ECS), sources confirmed.

Depositors are rushing to open accounts in other branches with the dividend paying season already on.

The Rs 10,000 cap on withdrawals during the moratorium period will affect all savings and current account holders as funds will be locked up till such a time when operations re-commence post-merger of GTB with the state-run Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), said a general manager with a leading private sector bank in the business of car loans.

This is not the first time such a crisis has hit salaried employees, said a leading housing finance entity. In the past in mid-80s on account of the lock-outs in various textile companies not to mention closure of some plants, housing finance companies drew up plans for the repayment of home loans of affected parties.

In the extreme cases where jobs were lost and housing finance companies were there to help out individuals, there is no question of us now imposing penalties on delays in the payment of equated monthly installments, said a senior official with a housing finance bank.