Does the term bank recovery agent remind you of a tough talking goon giving you sleepless nights?

After a spate of complaints about misbehaviour with borrowers, batches of recovery agents are undergoing training on behaviour and banking as a mandated by the Reserve Bank of India.

Dressed in formals and taking notes from power point presentations, not a batch of MBA students but bank recovery agents, who, last year, were in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Following reports on their alleged misbehaviour with loan defaulters, RBI has now made it mandatory for them to undergo training. At the end of it, they will have to appear for a certification exam to be conducted by Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF).

The training involves both domain knowledge and behavioural skills.

R Bhaskaran, CEO, IIBF said, ''This is not training like criminal reforms. All recovery agents are not bad. He has a job to do. The training is in behavioural skills and it imparts knowledge so that the recovery agent carries out this job in a feasible manner."

The course includes 100 hours of training, a certificate examination and further due diligence by the respective banks. There are over 70 accredited training institutes around the country to offer this course and they feel the response to the training is gradually increasing. 

Anup Mittal, spokesperson, Asset Reconstruction Company of India Ltd, said, ''This our second batch. We had 15 people in the first batch for our own consumption. The results have been good with 93 per cent plus pass results. This batch has about 25-30 people. The participants are happy. They themselves thought that there was a need for such a course.
 
Industry experts also feel that selling agents need training to sell the right product to the right people.