How to update your SBI nominee — online and at the branch (2026 process)

Banks freeze accounts within hours of a death certificate being uploaded. The difference between a family that gets access in two weeks and a family that fights for two years is almost always one thing: whether the nominee was correctly registered. With SBI specifically — the largest bank in India and the one most Indian families have at least one account in — the nominee update process has finally moved online for most product types in 2024-2025, but the offline route at the branch still exists and is sometimes still the only option for joint accounts and lockers.

Before you start: have these ready. Your account number. Your customer ID (CIF number — printed on your passbook and visible in NetBanking under Profile). The nominee's full name as it appears on a government ID. The nominee's date of birth. Their relationship to you (spouse, son, daughter, parent, brother, sister, etc.). Their address. If the nominee is a minor, the date they will turn 18 and the name and contact details of the guardian who will receive the money on their behalf.

**Route 1: YONO mobile app (savings accounts, FDs, RDs).** Open YONO → Profile (top-right avatar) → Service Request → Update Nominee → select the account → Add/Modify Nominee → fill in name, DOB, relationship, percentage share, address → review → confirm with the OTP sent to your registered mobile. You'll get a service request reference number. The change typically takes 2 working days to reflect; you'll see the nominee on your statement and passbook on next print.

**Route 2: Internet Banking (savings, FDs, RDs).** Log in to onlinesbi.sbi → e-Services → Nomination → choose product type → choose account → Add Nominee → fill the form → submit with high-security password. Same 2-working-day update cycle. For multiple nominees on the same account, you can split percentages but the total must add to 100.

**Route 3: Branch with Form DA-1 (mandatory for lockers, joint accounts, and some legacy products).** Download Form DA-1 from sbi.co.in (Forms section). Fill in account details, nominee details, your signature exactly as on the original account opening form, and the date. Visit the branch with one government-ID copy of yours and a self-attested ID copy of the nominee (the nominee does NOT need to visit). Ask for the acknowledgement stamp on your copy. Keep that acknowledgement — if there's ever a dispute about whether you nominated someone, that stamped form is your proof.

**PPF nominee.** Use Form F (separate from Form DA-1). PPF nominees are particularly important because PPF balances often run into lakhs and the post-death claim process is slower than for regular accounts. File at the same SBI branch where your PPF account is held. The nominee receives the balance plus interest accrued up to the month of death.

**Locker nominee.** Joint lockers require all joint holders to sign Form DA-1 together; single-holder lockers can be updated by the single holder alone. The locker nominee is separate from the savings account nominee — even if you've updated one, you still need to do the other. Family disputes around lockers (jewellery, property papers, original wills) are particularly nasty because the bank's process for granting access after death is bureaucratic and slow. A registered nominee shortens that timeline dramatically.

**What to do AFTER updating.** Take a screenshot of the updated nominee from your YONO or NetBanking profile. Save it to your Sort My Legacy account under Financial Inventory → Bank Accounts → Documents. Write down the service-request reference number. Tell your nominee, by name, that they are nominated and on which account — the number of times a family discovers a nominee only after the death is shockingly high. If you have multiple nominees, share the percentage split with each of them in writing.

**Common mistakes.** Forgetting to update the nominee after a marriage, divorce, or death in the family is the single biggest one. The nominee on your account when you die is the one the bank will pay — even if that's an ex-spouse or a sibling who's been estranged for fifteen years. A nominee update takes ten minutes. Sort My Legacy nudges you annually as part of the Annual Review reminder so you don't forget. Set a calendar alert for every birthday in your family if our reminder feels too late.