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Banking Services. | Search and Status Reports
Now a days, Banks are more emphasizing on demanding Search Reports from Limited Companies while opening of Bank Accounts or giving the Loan to such Companies. The need for Search Reports arises to keep themselves (Banks) safe and to ensure that the company is not the defaulting one or having not the defaulting directors and to know the complete history and information about the company.
A search report traces the history of a company or the property held by the company – i.e. who is the original owner of the property and how it has mortgaged with various banks over a period of time before reaching the present Bank who has demanded the Search Report. This is an important part of a loan process by Banks to the Companies. A search report usually prepared by us involves, a visit to the registrar's office (Registrar of Companies) and inspecting the property documents and online inspection of the documents and thereby issuing the certificate to the Bank stating the facts about the company.
Search Report is mainly beneficial and demanded by banks. They are the basic tool in the hands of the Banks to know about the viability of their customer who approach the banks for CC Limits, Term Loans or otherwise. As the sole moto of the Banks is to provide the loan to the customers is for earning the interest. Hence the Banks want the current position of the assets being pledged by the companies. And the only way to know whether such property is already pledged to some other bank or not, is the Search Report. In such search reports, we give the complete information about the loans already taken by the company.
Diligence Reports Way back in October 1996, Reserve Bank of India withdrew various regulatory prescriptions regarding conduct of consortium/multiple banking/syndicate arrangements so as to bring flexibility in the credit delivery System. With the passage of time, however, it was observed that the relaxations meant for providing flexibility to the borrowing community, may also have contributed to various types of frauds, prompting the Central Vigilance Commission to attribute the incidence of frauds mainly to the lack of effective sharing of information about the credit history and the conduct of account of the borrowers among various banks.
Accordingly, Reserve Bank of India in consultation with the Indian Banks’ Association, specified the framework to be observed by banks for improving the sharing/dissemination of information among the banks about the status of the borrowers enjoying credit facilities from more than one bank. Further, the banks are required to obtain regular certification of Diligence Report from a professional, preferably a Company Secretary about conformity to statutory prescriptions in vogue.
The Diligence Report covers many critical and relevant matters such as details of the Board of Directors, shareholding pattern, details of the forex exposure and overseas borrowings, risk mitigation through insurance cover in respect of all assets, payment of all statutory dues and other compliances, proper utilization/end-use of the loan funds, compliance with mandatory Accounting Standards, compliance with various clauses of Listing Agreement in case of a listed company etc. The compact structure of the Diligence Report under its twenty-five paragraphs makes it obligatory for a Practicing Company Secretary to prepare the Report after critical examination of all relevant records and documents of the borrowing companies which demands a high degree of care, skill and knowledge.
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