Mumbai, October 2023.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (KMBL/Kotak) today announced that it has partnered with National E-Governance Services Limited (NeSL) to issue its first electronic Bank Guarantee (e-BG) on the latter’s platform.

The tie-up enables the digitisation of Trade, thus helping eliminate paper-based issuance of Bank Guarantees. The digitisation includes issuance, amendment, closure, digital stamping and signing, significantly reducing the Guarantee turnaround time (TAT) to a few hours compared to 2-3 working days for the paper-based process. The e-BG also mitigates the authentication risks.

Paritosh Kashyap, President & Head Wholesale Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “Kotak Mahindra Bank has been at the forefront of providing our customers convenience and ease of banking. The partnership with NeSL in providing e-BG for our trade customers eliminates many issues both the lender and issuer face with endless paperwork, including several verification stages. Our focus on customer-centricity and innovation has led us to an early adoption of digital transformation in our banking services. We are committed to enhancing our customers’ experience across all products and services we offer in the banking industry, with e-BG being one of them.”

Debajyoti Ray Chaudhuri, MD & CEO, NeSL said, “e-BG brings a paradigm shift in the way we do trade finance and is a milestone in the digitisation of banking services. e-BG substantially reduces the time taken in the issuance and the other life cycle events of a bank guarantee, like an invocation. In an era of instant messaging, it’s appropriate that the e-BG is instantly available on issuance in a secure and digital form to the beneficiaries.”

With the help of NeSL- Digital Documents Execution (DDE) technology, the beneficiary can view digitally issued bank guarantees on the NeSL portal in real-time. e-BG issuance in digital form eliminates the need for a separate authentication from the bank guarantee issuing bank, thereby avoiding the additional efforts/time of the applicant and beneficiary. Further, the central repository of NeSL makes it convenient to retrieve issued bank guarantees as and when required and reduces the scope for misuse.