Bank of Baroda unveils electronic bank guarantee

MUMBAI: Bank of Baroda (BoB), one of India's leading public sector banks, announced the launch of Electronic Bank Guarantee (e-BG) on its BarodaINSTA 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 issue Electronic 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.