New Delhi, Oct 22 (IANS): Encouraged by the Reserve Bank of India's invitation to set up self-regulatory organisations (SROs) for financial services and payments industry, the Board of Business Correspondent Federation of India (BCFI) has approved the formation of an SRO, subject to due consent from the RBI.

The BCFI is a body representing companies working towards delivery of financial services to underbanked and unbanked citizens and is already involved in building standards and practices for the sector.

The federation has appointed Sunil Kulkarni as the new head of the BCFI and CEO (designate) for the SRO. An industry veteran, Kulkarni is one of the founding members of the BCFI and has been on its board since its inception.

The team at BCFI will improvise upon the code of conduct and grievance redressal mechanism developed last year, and implement them among its members with key focus on ensuring customer protection and betterment of service standards.

In complete alignment with the government's financial inclusion policy framework and the RBI's vision of National strategy on Financial Education, the BCFI SRO team would work towards expediting accessibility of financial services to the citizens and standardisation of banking processes to different corporate BCs.

The SRO for BCs will work towards setting and enforcing rules and standards relating to the conduct of corporate BCs and agent BCs in the industry (members) with the aim of protecting the customer and promoting ethics, equality and professionalism.