Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
Showing 2 terms
A company registered with the Reserve Bank whose principal business is lending or investing, but which is not a bank — it sits outside the payments system and, apart from a small separately authorised category, may not accept public deposits.
Every rupee it lends was first borrowed from somebody who priced it and can decline to renew. That single fact on the liability side reorganises every ratio on the asset side.
A finance company specifically authorised by the Reserve Bank to accept public deposits, subject to rating and tenure conditions.
Most non-banking financial companies may not take public deposits at all; the deposit-taking category is a separately authorised, and shrinking, subset. Regulated, but not a bank and not insured — the extra rate is credit risk on one company with no safety net behind it.