Indian banks seek gold from customers' homes

The State Bank of India has collected half a tonne of gold from customers under a "gold deposit" scheme designed to get gold out of homes and back into circulation.

"The gold deposit scheme has done exceptionally well especially in Ahmedabad with 80 percent of deposits coming to bank vaults are from the city out of the total gold deposits of 548 kilograms received so far from across the state," a senior official of the bank said in a Trading Markets report.

"Largely it is the individuals who are depositing gold in the bank vaults, and just two religious trusts have come forward so far to deposit their idle lying gold reserves with us," he added.

SBI expects more religious trusts to deposit their gold reserves in the short term.