Keeping in view these ground realities, RBI issued the business correspondent guidelines in 2006, which paved the way for branchless banking through agents. The guidelines allowed, for the first time, commercial banks to offer simple savings loan and remittance products through agents, who were allowed to undertake banking transactions, including “cash in cash out” transactions at locations close to the customer.
Banks were advised as part of risk management to adopt ICT solutions including biometric identification of the customer. The agents are required to deposit bank’s cash balances beyond certain limits with the bank’s branches by end of day or the next day.