The Indian Institute of Banking & Finance plans to come out with a certification on business correspondents, risk management and compliance this year.?As the microfinance sector in the country is not well developed, we are looking at formally training business correspondents, so that they understand the products and offer proper debt counselling to the rural masses,? said R Bhaskar, chief executive officer at IIBF.
He added that different subjects like money laundering, capital adequacy and know your customer (KYC) norms would be included under compliance. Students are given a time period for four months before appearing for the examination.
Recently, courses on home loans, microfinance and commodity derivatives have been introduced by the institute for certification. Bhaskar pointed out that any graduate from any stream, post-graduates and even bank employees are allowed to take up these courses.
Talking about the banking diploma courses being offered by the institute, Bhaskar said that the second batch of students has started taking classes on the same.
?This is a six month course offered by the institute. This year about 1,100 students will appear for this examination,? said Bhaskar. The diploma course comprises of three subjects namely principles of banking, accountancy and regulations in the banking sector.
On passing the examination, the institute recommends the candidates to the banks, after which they appear for the banks? internal examination or interviews conducted by them. ?Some of the students from the first batch have already got placed with HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank,? said Bhaskar.
However, the institute does not offer job placement services. Bhaskar said he would like the candidates to have undergone just one examination from the institute should directly get absorbed by banks without going through any internal examination of the bank.