Does a family member's CIB blacklist affect you? Spouse, parent, guarantor and co-applicant cases in Nepal

A friend's younger sister applied for a Rs 4 lakh scooter loan at a bank in Baneshwor last Bhadra. She has a salary account, no other debt, a clean record. The loan officer called back two days later: "Your father is in CIB, so the family is blacklisted." Her father's wholesale shop had defaulted on a working-capital loan in 2080. She had never signed anything for it.

That sentence from the officer is wrong as a statement of the rule, and right as a description of what many banks do. NRB's directive says plainly that family members are not blacklisted. It also makes lending to them expensive enough that a lot of banks decline anyway. The gap between those two facts is what this post is about.

What the directive actually says about family

The rules live in NRB's Unified Directive 2082, issued in Magh 2082 for A, B and C class institutions. Directive 12 covers credit information and blacklisting. There is no separate blacklisting bylaw at CIB; this directive is the binding text.

Clause 9(4) lists who is blacklisted with a defaulting borrower, and then adds the proviso that matters here:

तर कुनै ऋणी/व्यक्ति कालोसूचीमा परेमा त्यस्ता ऋणी/व्यक्तिको एकाघर परिवारका सदस्यहरुलाई कालोसूचीमा राख्नु पर्नेछैन ।

If a borrower is blacklisted, the members of their household family are not to be blacklisted. The same proviso was in the 2081 directive, so this is not new.

Clause 17(5) defines the household family (एकाघर परिवार):

One quirk: a married brother who has partitioned and runs his own business is outside the definition entirely. The proviso protects household members, and he is not one, so his protection rests on the ordinary rule that only parties to a loan are listed.

Older articles cite clause numbers from the 2080 directive. The 2082 version inserted a new cheque-dishonour clause at 9(3), which pushed "parties to be blacklisted" to 9(4) and delisting to 9(6). Quote the new numbers to a bank.

Who does get pulled onto the list

Clause 9(4) is long. The parts that catch family members in practice:

Most "my whole family got blacklisted" stories turn out to be one of the first seven rows. A wife who was made a 20% shareholder in her husband's private company on paper, a son who signed as jamani, a father listed as partner in his daughter's firm. The guarantor post covers the jamani trap in detail.

Case by case

Spouse. Not listed for the marriage. But two other rules reach a spouse. The Muluki Civil Code 2074 makes husband and wife each other's agent in general household affairs (section 88), and section 216 treats debts borrowed by adult members of an undivided family for household work, farming or trade as common debts, split equally at partition. That is civil liability through common property, collected through a court. It is not a CIB listing. Directive 12, clause 11, also says the 35-day pre-blacklisting notice is validly served if handed to a family member, so a spouse may be the first to see it.

Parent or child. Same rule, not listed for the relationship. The usual friction is the scooter-loan story above: a bank that does not want the board paperwork. A child who has partitioned and lives separately is outside the household definition, which also takes them outside the clause 6(ग) family-lending condition.

Guarantor. Listed, but only in sequence. The bank must first auction the borrower's collateral. If money is still owed, it sends the guarantor a 90-day notice, by newspaper if the letter cannot be delivered. Only then does the listing happen. Under clause 17(2), the guarantor comes off once they pay up to the amount they guaranteed, even if the borrower still owes more.

Co-applicant on a home loan. The directive has no clause that names a co-applicant. Clause 9(4)(क) lists anyone using the credit, and a co-borrower is a borrower, so assume both names go on. Clause 9(6) offers one way out: where several borrowers have their liability limits specified, a borrower who pays their own share is delisted. If you are signing a joint home loan, ask the bank whether the deed splits liability by share. Everything in this paragraph is my reading of the two clauses; the directive does not spell out the co-applicant case.

Heir. Clause 9(4)(ठ) lets the bank ask heirs who accept the deceased's property to take on the liability within a reasonable time, and blacklist them if they refuse or fail. The Civil Code (section 247) caps an heir's liability at the value of what they inherited. Take the house, and the loan on it comes with it. Take nothing, and you owe nothing. The inheritance post covers how property passes.

Family business. The 15% shareholding threshold in 9(4)(च) is the most common way a relative ends up listed without knowing it. Shares registered in a family member's name for convenience count. An opinion piece in B360 argues the rule conflicts with limited liability under the Companies Act; no court ruling striking it down turned up.

Why banks still say no: the board rule and the group rule

Two clauses explain the loan officer's phone call.

Clause 6(ग): "If a licensed institution wishes to lend to family members related to blacklisted persons, it may do so according to the decision of its board of directors." The loan also has to carry double the normal loan-loss provision, capped at 100%. For a Rs 4 lakh scooter loan, that means a board agenda item and twice the capital set aside. Many branches will not bother, and "the family is blacklisted" is the shorthand.

The related group. Directive 3 defines a "group of related customers" for lending limits, and it includes a borrower's spouse, children, parents, stepmother and dependent siblings, whether living together or separated. Borrowers sharing the same collateral also count. Directive 12, clause 9(4)(ञ), lists group members as blacklistable, and clause 6(क) cuts off new credit to regular-paying group members once a related account stays overdue past a 6-month grace that the board can extend by 6 more.

How the family proviso and the group rule fit together is not spelled out. My reading is that the group rule bites mainly where family members co-own the business or share collateral with the defaulter, and the proviso protects the relative who simply shares a surname. If a bank cites the group rule against you, ask which shared exposure it is pointing at.

How to check, and what it costs

Fees are VAT inclusive per the forms, which ask applicants to consult the office before paying; applications go by email to CIB's customer-care address with ID and the payment receipt. Both forms are signed by the applicant with their own ID, and I found no published route for requesting a relative's report, even with consent. The public PDF is the only way to see a relative's status.

That PDF is large. The 2083-06-29 file runs to 4,506 pages: about 1,50,200 entries listed by banks and financial institutions and about 34,500 by microfinance institutions. Entries are not unique people. The Kathmandu Post put the number of people blacklisted at about 1,70,000 at the end of September 2026, with microfinance listings rising from 710 in 2022-23 to 21,600 in 2025-26. The credit score post explains what else a lender reads in your own report.

Thresholds, and two numbers that circulate wrongly

Directive 12, clause 4(1) and 9(1), requires banks to recommend blacklisting for loans of Rs 10 lakh or more, though they may list smaller defaulters. The grounds include principal or interest overdue for more than a year (the board can extend by up to 3 months), proven misuse of the loan or collateral, a borrower out of contact for 90 days, insolvency, and a case filed in court or at the Debt Recovery Tribunal. For microfinance borrowers the floor is Rs 5 lakh, with wilful defaulters listable at any amount. A dishonoured cheque of any amount is its own ground; the cheque bounce post covers that procedure.

The "90 days and you're blacklisted" line is a misreading. Ninety days overdue makes a loan non-performing and reportable. In the blacklisting clause, 90 days applies to forced loans from credit cards or non-funded facilities and to borrowers who go out of contact. The EMI default timeline walks through what happens in between.

Also not Nepal: the "seven years on your record" rule. That is Indian credit-bureau framing. Directive 12, clause 12, bars Nepali banks from refusing a new loan just because a repaid and delisted name appears in past records. The only 3-year cooling-off periods are for becoming a bank CEO and for buying a bank's promoter shares. A blacklisted person's passport can be withheld only on a discretionary recommendation through NRB, under clause 8; it is not automatic.

If a bank turns you down over a relative

1. Ask for the reason in writing. Your own CIB hit, a relative's listing, or a group-exposure limit are three different problems.
2. Get your own report first. Rs 310.75 settles whether you are on the list, which is the question the officer may be guessing at.
3. Quote the proviso. Directive 12/082, clause 9(4): household family members are not blacklisted. Ask whether the bank will take the clause 6(ग) board route.
4. Show separation where it exists. A registered partition deed and a separate address take you out of the household-family definition.
5. Try another bank. The board-and-provisioning cost is a policy choice, and banks make it differently.
6. Help the relative get delisted. Once the overdue amount is paid or the loan rescheduled, the bank has 3 days to recommend removal and CIB 3 working days to act. The blacklist removal guide has the steps.

What you actually need to know

1. Family members are not blacklisted for being family. NRB's Directive 12/082, clause 9(4), says so. Your name goes on the list only through a role you signed for: guarantor, co-borrower, partner, director, 15% shareholder, or an heir who takes the property and refuses the debt.
2. "The family is blacklisted" usually means the bank does not want the extra cost. Lending to a blacklisted person's family needs a board decision and double provisioning under clause 6(ग). Get your own CIB report, ask for the refusal in writing, and try another bank.
3. The fix is the relative's delisting, and it is fast once paid. Three days for the bank, three working days for CIB, and clause 12 stops banks from holding the old listing against anyone afterwards.

Turned down because of a relative's listing? Email parjanya57@gmail.com with what the bank said and which clause it cited, and I'll tell you which rule actually applies.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the Save the Gap section.