Course Overview
- Who are they? Business correspondents are retail agents engaged by banks for providing services at locations other than a bank branch or an ATM.
- Permitted services include: identification of borrowers, collection and preliminary processing of loan applications, collection of small value deposit, disbursal of small value credit, sale of micro insurance, MF products and pension products.
- History: In 2006, RBI issued guidelines for engagement of BCs by banks for providing banking and financial services.
- Who can act as BCs? The RBI has provided a long list of entities and persons who can act as BCs.
- Some of these are NGOs/ MFIs set up under Indian Societies/ Trust Acts (excluding non banking financial companies (NBFCs)), Societies registered under mutually aided co-op. societies (MACs) Act or the Coop. Acts of States, Section 25 companies, Post Offices, Individual kirana/ medical/fair price shop owners etc.
- In June 2018, Union government announced that all 2.9 lakh common service centres (CSCs) in the country will operate as business correspondents of banks.