Page 43 - Banking Finance September 2018

ARTICLE

up from loan application is fed in the Truecaller application
or online classified like Justdial, Indiamart, Yellow Pages
online or the number is directly fed in Google contextual
search engine. The process usually yields three category of
information- the name of customer, the email id and/or
facebook link to his facebook profile. Finding facebook ID in
the first step is rare, however with the help of name, mobile
number and mail ID which when fed into Facebook or
Linkedin websites may yield the subject's social media
presence.

If it is Linkedin profile then we are able to find the
professional details of the subject like his official name,
organisations he has worked for, current employer etc. organisations (banks and other lending institutions), has come
These details further can be used to trace the location of out with a product called 'Locate Plus'. CIBIL claims that
the subject and contact him. If the details yield facebook 'Locate Plus' will help member-banks and other lending
profile then a significant amount of information can be institutions to enrich their customer contact information and
extracted from the profile. enhance efficiency of the collection process. 'Locate Plus' will
provide the latest information such as customer's contact
The facebook profile may reveal the current job, current addresses (both residential and workplace), and contact
location etc of the subject while the images/snaps will trace numbers available in the CIBIL database. Look at one real case-
the whereabouts and the places frequently visited by the
subject. Yogesh had migrated to Bangalore from Madhya Pradesh
in 2002 and used to work for a leading software company.
The lifestyle or the financial position of the subject can also When he got a lucrative job in the U.S., he coolly withdrew
be gauged through the photographs posted thereon. Friend the maximum from his credit cards and took a personal loan
list of the defaulter can also reveal mutual connections which of Rs. 2 lakh and fled the scene without informing the lenders
can be employed to gently push the defaulter into repaying about his new domicile or employment.
the dues. The likes on the pictures can also help in finding
the mutual connections. Sometimes the defaulter prefers He never paid back the loans and banks which had funded
to operate under hidden profile, in that case the comments him could not trace him, till recently. After 5-6 years in the
on the cover picture or profile picture can reveal a lot of U.S., he returned to India and found a job in Gurgaon. He
information. applied for a credit facility in a bank in Gurgaon in 2009 but
his application was rejected as the credit report issued by
Publicly shared posts of the defaulter also fetch a lot of likes/ CIBIL showed that he had defaulted in three banks.
comments from his near and dear ones, which can be easily
identified and the same skiptracing technique can be The bank where Yogesh's loan application was rejected
employed to them, to make contact with the defaulting promptly gave the personal details of Yogesh to CIBIL. The
borrower. Sometimes defaulter used their social media new contact details of Yogesh were promptly passed on to
profile to advertise their business which can be an easy the three banks of Bangalore, which had funded him in
scenario to locate the borrower. 2002-03, when they approached CIBIL under 'Locate Plus'
scheme.
CIBIL's Locate Plus
To trace such defaulters, the Credit Information Bureau All three banks zeroed-in on him and recovered their long-
(India) Limited (CIBIL), which has been assisting all lenders by pending bad debts along with interest, late payment fine
sharing the credit information of borrowers of all member and recovery charges.

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