The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
MUMBAI, MAY 10, 2023
Bank of Baroda (Bank), one of India’s leading public sector banks, announced the launch of Electronic Bank Guarantee (e-BG) on its Baroda INSTA platform, in partnership with National E-Governance Services Limited (NeSL), which offers a platform for the issuance of Inland BGs through electronic mode.
NeSL is India’s first and only Information Utility and is regulated by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC).
With this launch, Bank of Baroda joins a select group of banks to issueElectronic Bank Guarantees – a start-to-end digital process across the complete lifecycle of a BG including issuance, amendment and closure resulting in substantial reduction in the turnaround time in issuing a BG, while at the same time bringing in greater security and accessibility.
The conventional paper-based process of issuing inland Bank Guarantees normally takes a few days to execute from BG issuance to receipt by the beneficiary. Further in the absence of a central repository, it is difficult to verify the BG status and there is also scope for misuse.
In an e-BG, physical stamping is replaced by e-stamping by NeSL, preventing fraud. The e-BGs are stored in a central repository resulting in complete transparency and accessibility for all stakeholders, as well as ease of authentication and verification. Also, as against the average 2-3 days TAT in case of a conventional BG, an Electronic Bank Guarantee gets processed and delivered in a matter of minutes.
“Electronic Bank Guarantee is a transformational reform as we endeavour to make banking simpler, more secure and easily accessible for our customers. Individual contractors, SMEs and large corporates are major applicants for bank guarantees and the move to e-BGs – a quick, seamless, transparent and completely secure process – will benefit them all,” said TN Suresh, General Manager, Head – Forex & Fee Income, Bank of Baroda.
NeSL MD & CEO Debajyoti Ray Chaudhuri said, “Over the past few years, India has built a robust digital infrastructure and this is driving growth across all sectors in the economy. The banking industry in general and BOB in particular has been at the forefront in making its products and processes available through the digital mode. NeSL’s e-BG meets a long-standing requirement of the banking industry for a digital product that addresses the challenges in the physical process of issuance of e-BGs. We are grateful to the Indian Banks’ Association for their support in conceptualising this product and coordinating the numerous consultations with their members till the time the product was ready for launch.”
National E-Governance Services Ltd (NeSL) offers a platform for the issuance of Inland BGs through electronic mode. The digital steps in an e-BG include BG application, preview and confirm, paperless e-stamping, e-signing, hosting of the final electronic BG on the NeSL portal and intimation of final BG to the beneficiary. The beneficiary can view the final digital BG on the NeSL portal immediately on issuance. Such an e-BG eliminates the need for a separate authentication from the BG issuing Bank.
