National e-Governance Services Ltd. (NeSL), a union government company that had received an in-principle approval in June for establishing an information utility (IU), has now received the final approval to become India’s first IU.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has granted it registration till September, 2022.
IUs will be the one-step repository for all information related to lending and borrowing activities of financial institutions. In other words, information of all such financial contracts will be maintained in an electronic format.
It will also provide effective retrieval facilities for Insolvency Professionals, Debt Recovery Tribunal, and the National Company Law Tribunal so as to enable the proceedings to be completed in a time-bound manner.
Incidentally, IBBI Chairman M.S. Sahoo had recently said that the setting up of an IU will be a game changer in the market.
NeSL is owned and promoted by leading public institutions like State Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, CDSL, HDFC, Axis Bank, Union Bank of India and NABARD among others. Currently, NeSL operates from Mumbai and Bengaluru.
S.Ramann, an officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IAAS), heads NeSL. He has formerly served the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as an executive director.
Suvan Law Advisors along with SNG & Partners are the law firms advising NeSL while Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) is the knowledge partner of IU.
